Mike's Volunteering Story

Mike: From work to retirement.

Mike had a rewarding career in IT, working long hours and travelling extensively. His work was challenging, and he spent a lot of time away from home. Five years ago, he toyed with the idea of retiring. He wanted to become involved in volunteering but had little time to commit to other things in his life.

It was an ideal opportunity for Mike as he could use his skills and expertise and he had the flexibility to visit the individuals in his own free time whilst he was still working and contemplating the idea of retirement. He felt he was doing something useful, not only in helping the men and women he met with their IT, but also by getting to know them and being a presence in their lives.

    This role with AJR was Mike’s introduction to the world of volunteering and his work is greatly appreciated by the charity. Larissa of AJR said, “Mike is reliable and patient and helps the clients with their IT. It is very time effective and enables us at AJR to do other things. We are also not as computer literate as Mike and so he helps with things we can’t do. He has more time and more patience.”

    When Mike knew he was getting ready to retire he once again went onto the JVN site and noticed an interesting opportunity. JVN was looking for someone whose responsibility it was to look at each of the registered charities and monitor, identify and analyse the data. Mike had an interview with Lia Bogod and accepted a part time volunteer role for half a day a week.

   According to Lia, “We had a website, but we were aware that we weren't using the data it could provide fully as we didn’t have someone with strong IT skills in our small team. Mike was Head of IT and was looking to retire, so we created a role which he fully delivers and more!”

   It took some time before Mike could commit more regularly to JVN as his retirement was postponed.

    For Lia and JVN, Mike’s role of making sure that the website could analyse its data better was crucial. “It proved to be very important for our continuous impact assessment. Mike is an IT genius and provides us monthly with key numbers and indicators. Not only is this beneficial for JVN but also for the charities we work with as we give them a summary of their recruitment data every 6 months.”

   After a year Mike gave up the consultancy work and decided to find an additional volunteer role through JVN. He applied to TAG to run a project for schoolgirls in Africa to help them with their computer skills. He was able to structure his week between JVN, AJR and TAG.

  Mike then applied for another role he found on the JVN website and became a trustee for the charity Jewish Choice. He learnt about the role of a trustee, how a care home operates, and all the challenges involved in running one efficiently.

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