A career change for Chris
Chris Sullivan, from Kingston, Surrey, is finding her
new job with Marie Curie Cancer Care a refreshing change after 20 years in the Civil
Service. Chris had worked as a Systems and Database administrator for the Department of
Transport, Environment and the Regions. When she
took voluntary redundancy, she set her sights on working in the voluntary sector.
 Chris’s
previous experience as a volunteer had been in fundraising for several charities, but on
retirement she wanted to do something different. Her first move was to contact REACH, the
charity that finds voluntary work for professional people that makes the best use of their
skills. They promised to help expand her
experience.
REACH first placed Chris with the National Missing
Persons Helpline where she rationalised their fundraising databases, working from
their office and also from home.
“It is a marvellous organisation and
the people were great,” she says. “I enjoyed being there and they look after all
their volunteers well. They gave us coffee and lunch and paid our fares, which is
important when you don’t have a salary coming in.”
Her next REACH placement was with ZWIN (Zero Waste
Initiative), part of the Richmond Environmental Information centre (REIC) in
Twickenham. This project was set up to encourage
energy efficiency. It offers small businesses help
in reducing their energy costs through improving their environmental performance by
reducing avoidable waste. Chris set up an
information database giving the details of the free assessment visits that ZWIN makes to
local businesses. She also designed an information
leaflet on energy efficiency to accompany ZWIN’s information pack.
She is very enthusiastic about ZWIN’s
work. “If every business and every home really
concentrated on energy saving and recycling there could be huge benefits to our
environment and the economy.”
Chris now has a full-time salaried post with Marie Curie Cancer Care as the
Systems Administrator for their direct marketing and finance databases. She continues to
work for ZWIN, too, and is also thinking of looking for another REACH placement. For Chris, a change is even better than a rest.
 For
information on getting voluntary work through REACH contact 020 7582 6543 website: www.volwork.org.uk
For ZWIN
call 020 8892 0329 or E-mail zwin@talk21.com
For Marie Curie Cancer Care contact
020 7399 7777 website: www.mariecurie.org.uk
For the National Missing Persons Helpline contact 020
8392 4510 website: www.missingpersons.org.uk
For further information about REACH:
telephone local area manager Freddy Clarke on 01235 833 298 or REACH HQ on 020 7582
6543:
website www.volwork.org.uk
Look out for future features from Olive Braman in Reports From The
REACH Files
To view
previous articles in this series - see the laterlife-interest
index page
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