Being awarded a placement at Strathcarron

I received a message last week that made me take a sharp intake of breath, then say out loud (even though I was sitting on my own at the time), “Oh My God!.....Woohooo!...... Aw, that’s so Great!.......Oh Help!....”

I think I mentioned, in a previous post, that I was waiting to hear if I’d been successful in an application I’d made for a 4 month part-time placement; well, the message I received started with “Congratulations!” and went on to say “You’ve been awarded a placement on the Vodafone World of Difference Programme.” It’s the news I was so hoping for and I’m still, one week later, over the moon - but also pretty nervous about the task ahead! I’ve not been allowed to write anything about it before now as we were asked to keep it to ourselves until the Vodafone Foundation launched its own press release. Now that I’m free to talk about it, I don’t really know where to start!

I think I’ll leave the details for another post. But, basically, the Vodafone World of Difference Scheme awards 500 placements in the UK each year to people who would like to try to ‘make a difference’ to a charity of their choice. It doesn’t cost the charity a penny and it gives people, like me, who love working for their charity but can’t afford to volunteer for more than a few hours a week, the opportunity to spend more time helping out. I had to put together a kind of ‘pitch’ for what I would like to do and I came up with a project called ‘A Myriad of Music’. I have absolutely no professional qualifications in music, in any way, shape or form, but I do know that music can make a difference to people’s lives. So, I’m hoping to introduce some new things to the Hospice that will be both therapeutic and enjoyable for the patients, and I also hope to raise some money for Strathcarron as part of the process. I'm also really hoping to involve as many people in this as possible (and am hoping for some help along the way!) as music is something that so many people can benefit from - whether it's listening to it, sharing it, performing it or talking about it.

I’ll record more of the details in my next post; I just wanted to note on my wee blog how excited, chuffed and privileged I feel to have been given this fantastic opportunity to work with the lovely staff and patients at Strathcarron. I can’t wait to get started on the 1st of March – and once I manage to get my nerves in check - I’m sure I’m going to love every minute!

Here's the video I made to go along with my application; hopefully it gives you the general gist of what I'm going to be doing.