Three Tele Befriending volunteers explain why they enjoy their roles so much.
Bob's story
Bob gives an hour of his time each week to facilitate a weekly telephone social group from home. He helps a group of six elderly ladies with similar interests from across the UK to meet together and enjoy a lively conversation.
"My name's Bob and I'm a facilitator for a Talk and Support group, which is made up of six ladies that I look after on a Monday morning. If I feel that one of the ladies isn't saying much I can draw her into the conversation. If the conversation starts to dry up I can suggest subjects for them to talk about. I just enjoy the whole experience really. It's what the ladies - I call them my ladies - it's what they get from it that makes me happy. When some of the ladies say, 'This is my favourite hour of the week', that means such a lot to me personally that it makes it all worthwhile. You know it's really a lifeline for them. It's brilliant; it's the best thing I've ever done."
Kanta's story
Kanta facilitates a Telephone Book Club from home. The group of eight participants are from different parts of the UK and come together once a month to exchange their ideas and enthusiasm for books and reading. Kanta helps the group to select books to read and then facilitates the group's discussions about the books. She also chairs guest speaker sessions.
"My name is Kanta and I have been a Telephone Book Club facilitator since 2006. The sessions are fun, friendly, stimulating and interesting, as participants share their thoughts, views, opinions and feelings. To be a book group facilitator, one must love reading because it's all about reading books. As the facilitator, I become part of the group experience and build a relationship with the group. I enjoy meeting the participants over the phone. They come from all corners of the UK. Once, whilst we were reading a war time book, two participants suddenly realised, as were talking, that they had been in the same part of the country during the war, but they had never met until they joined the book group. It was wonderful to listen to their experiences and they have made a wonderful friendship."
Patricia's story
Talk and Support volunteer, Patricia, shares her experience of training to become a Tele Befriending facilitator:
"My name is Patricia and I'm a facilitator. The one bit that I really did enjoy was the training. It was all dealt with over the phone, which was absolutely brilliant because I was able to stay at home, comfortable in my own lounge. The training was actually quite intensive, but what I enjoyed about it was it was extremely friendly. Although it was professional and some of the subjects we had to cover were things like equal opportunities, it was actually coming across as being extremely interesting. I thoroughly enjoy being a facilitator and, like I say, if it wasn't for the training I think I would have found it a lot more difficult than I actually do."