Volunteering

Our army of volunteers play a vital role in raising awareness of our life-saving work, assisting with support in our local communities and helping to increase income. At year end, we were supported by 412 volunteers, slightly down from 422 at the end of last year.

Our volunteers give their time and energy, sharing skills and knowledge to support our life-saving work and keep the charity operational. The gradual easing of lockdown restrictions allowed us to restart some of our face-to-face fundraising activities, which would not have been possible without the dedication and commitment of our volunteers.

Throughout all stages of the pandemic, our fundraising team has proven how agile and creative they can be, addressing immediate challenges whilst engaging with our supporters to keep relationships and communications active. Volunteer activity gained momentum with tin collections and events resuming. National Volunteers’ Week took place during the first week of June as we came together to celebrate and thank our volunteers for their generosity and hard work. In addition to sharing a thank you video on our website, we also featured a series of volunteers’ stories online and across social media, raising awareness of their amazing work. We will continue sharing volunteering stories, hopefully inspiring others to learn new skills, meet likeminded people and be a part of the EHAAT family – ultimately helping to save lives.

Vision 21-22

We were delighted to hold our annual Vision event for volunteers at our new North Weald airbase in November. Over 50 of our volunteers were in attendance, and those who couldn’t be there in person joined us via Zoom. Vision is always a very important day in the calendar because it gives us the opportunity to thank and recognise our hardworking team of volunteers and present our vision for the future, however, seeing our volunteers catching up in person at our new airbase made this occasion even more special.

Volunteers had the chance to see our interactive Visitor Centre before moving into our new conference space, where we looked back at our highlights for 2021, unveiled exciting plans and presented a series of long service awards. John Turnbull collected his 15-year recognition award, whilst Clive Enguell, Jyotsna Islam, Brendan Jordan and Carole Simmonds picked up their 10-year recognition awards. We’d like to say a huge thank you to each and every one of our volunteers for their incredible dedication to our mission.