Alan Lees has been volunteering for PRITC for approximately 6 months. He took early retirement from work; as a secondary school PE teacher. His wife, a Breeze Rider, told him about the Inclusive Sports session that PRITC hold once a week. Alan was keen to volunteer as he already had a skill set he could bring to the role and something he said he would feel comfortable in doing.

He enjoys the sessions as ‘everyone is very positive and supportive of each other, and you don’t always get that in schools, so the sessions are really enjoyable.’

He also volunteers at the PRITC end of the month socials and ‘likes to see everyone happy and enjoying themselves’. He said he gets satisfaction from volunteering and knows that he can ‘dip in and out’.

Alan was keen to undertake MIDAS training which would enable him to be a volunteer for Beverley Community Lift. He now drives the mini bus for the end of the month socials. He has also done ‘community driving’ – he has driven the bus for the ‘Pocklington to Asda shopper’.

SS has recently moved into one of the new estates on the outskirts of Pocklington. Whilst driving the boys home after school one day, her younger son commented on the amount of rubbish that had gathered on the verges and under the hedges. The boys had a conversation with SS and said they thought they could pick the rubbish up and make the road look better.

After talking to some of their friends at school, 7 children and 4 adults decided to litter pick at various locations around Pocklington. SS contacted PRITC regarding litter picking equipment which we provided (‘grabbers’, black bags, hoops for the bags, plastic gloves and high vis vests).

The children collected the litter on three separate days in their half-term holiday and were amazed at how much rubbish there was and at some of the items they had collected!

They were also sad when they saw that rubbish was starting to collect again a week later. They made posters to put on lamp posts and asked if they could do it again in the Easter holidays.

A group of 4 volunteers from Kerry Foods, on the Industrial Estate in Pocklington, spent a day painting the new Group Room at Pocklington Rugby Club on behalf of PRITC. The room is to be used by community groups (free of charge) for meetings, training etc.

The space, had not been used as a meeting room before and had just been used by the rugby club as extra storage space, apart from a short period of time when a physiotherapist worked in the space. Kerry Foods already have links to The People’s Pantry, that operates from the end of the building and Craig had enquired if he could volunteer for PRITC. Four volunteers: Craig Ronaldson, Rebecca Morgan, Nicola Crook and Anthony Cocker spent 6 hours decorating the room.

Now that the room is decorated and has new furniture, it is fit for purpose and has been used by a number of groups already.

PRITC had started to use BCL to pick up and drop off people who didn’t have transport or had mobility issues for its monthly social.

We met with SD, manager at BCL, to discuss drivers. He said there was a lack of drivers in the Pocklington area and it would be good to have some more trained. we sourced 6 volunteers who undertook the MIDAS training. The course consisted of 3 hours theory and 2 hours driving.

All passed! Not only do they drive for the PRITC social, but two of them have also driven for the community on drives such as ‘The Wednesday shopper’ to York and ‘The Stamford Bridge shopper’.