“You do it because you help people to enjoy what the city can give”
Diane has been volunteering for about 25 years. She started at a roller skating club she used to go to and then moved on to volunteering within a gymnastics club where she spent 20 years. For her, it was giving children and young people the opportunity to participate in sport and social activities to the best of their abilities. She truly believes that young people who are doing sports or activities involving team work has a positive effect on their behaviour at school and theirachievements as “They know they have to work to put something in and get something out of it”. In 2013, she decided to step back from the gym club because the people that she used to work with were not children anymore and could take it over. However, she did not want to stop volunteering.
“When I said that I was stepping down from the club they said: Why don’t you
actually still volunteer and apply to be an Ambassador?”
She had already seen the Ambassadors during the Olympic year (in 2012) where she was involved in programmes with the gymnastics club and knew a few of the volunteers involved and when she told them that she was stepping down from the club, they told her to keep volunteering and apply to be an Ambassador. Therefore, she did and was successfully accepted the same year. She has now been a Coventry Ambassador for 3 years.
Diane has always had to supervise and support people due to her professional background, something she keeps doing and developing as a volunteer as well as her interpersonal skills. She likes volunteering because she likes to talk to people and engage with the public. She remembers when she was volunteering once, a family came to her asking for help. They were looking for a school for their daughter and other information as they had just arrived in the city and “Because I was born in Coventry, my habitation is in Coventry, I am agraduate of Coventry University, I was able to tell them where to go although it wasn’t part of the Ambassador role I was doing on the day”.
“People will come up to you because they’ll see you in your pink and purple and they ask all sorts of questions”
For Diane volunteering is a true involvement for the community and is about makingthe city welcoming. This is not only about the events that are supported: “People will comeup to you because they’ll see you in your pink and purple (Coventry Ambassadors’ uniform) and they ask all sorts of question, I mean not necessarily about the event we are helping with but they may ask you something about the city like the history of the Lady Godiva, about theCathedral… […]”. Diane is glad to be able to answer to all of these questions and advise on theplaces to go and see in Coventry but also to tell about the history of the city that people probably do not know.
“[…] You do it because you help people to enjoy what the city can give”
As a Coventry Ambassador, Diane has participated in very different events such as Sports Week, the Prince William visit to the city, the Irish President visit to the city… Morerecently, she and fourteen other ambassadors were involved in the celebration of the 50thanniversary of the opening of the Coombe Country Park. She particularly remembers a lady that came at the end of the day thanking them for their help and for making it such a lovely day for the family. Diane adds that “This is why you do it because you help people to enjoy what the city can give”.
“Fascinating, Scintillating, Brilliant!”
When she is asked to describe her experience as a Coventry Ambassador in few words, Diane opted with enthusiasm for “Fascinating, Scintillating, Brilliant!”. This is an experience
that she definitively recommends as for her: “People should always try to do something togive back to the community”. Indeed, this is what all the Coventry Ambassador volunteers are doing “They give children, young people and adults the opportunity to do what they want todo, to make the best of their lives”.
“You should give back to the community you’ve been brought up into, even if you have not been brought up in and you’re new to the city, it gives you an opportunity to know about Coventry because we are much more than peopleare actually aware of”
