It’s Volunteers’ Week

Get Ready for Volunteers Week! Join the Nationwide Celebration of Community Heroes, June 1st-7th. Discover the Incredible Impact of Millions of UK Volunteers! 

This week is Volunteers Week, taking place 1st-7th of June and is an annual celebration of the contributions made by millions of people across the UK through their volunteering efforts in their community.  

Volunteers Week gives the chance to recognise the amazing contribution volunteers make to our communities and say thank you for their work. It is a time to celebrate volunteers and inspire others to join the volunteering efforts. The week aims to show that there’s more than one way to volunteer and aim to encourage others to be the change they want to see in the world. 

At Paragon Skills, we aim to serve the community as best we can; our ethos and purpose of the business is to deliver an outstanding teaching and learning experience to every learner, every time. As a business, Paragon Skills wish to widen our impact on the community by supporting our colleagues to make a positive difference through positive action and volunteering. For this reason, Paragon Skills provide each colleague with up to three paid working days of volunteering leave each year, to support a cause of their choice related to the actions of a reputable charity or community service. 

In the last year, 28 Paragon Skills colleagues have taken a total of 144 hours of volunteering leave. We are so proud of our volunteering colleagues and their efforts to impact their communities to create positive change, and we aim to encourage as many as possible to join their volunteering efforts.  

One of our colleagues shared their story with us about their time volunteering: 

In April I used 2 days volunteering leave to help with the set-up of Teddy Rocks music festival. 

Teddy Rocks, an event that began in a pub, is now an annual event, in Dorset, that aims to raise money for Children’s cancer Charities. I’ve been attending the event with my family for the last three years, but felt I wanted to do more than simply give them my money as a festival goer. 

In it’s 10th year the festival has a capacity of 10,000 guests and this year hosted acts including East 17, the Venga Boys, Feeder and Jake Bug.  

The festival relies on an army of volunteers to support with the set-up, doing jobs like putting up fencing, branding key areas of the event, welcoming traders on site, putting up signage and generally supporting with anything and everything that needs to be done. It’s a massive operation to turn a field into a festival site, especially for paying guests who are there to spend their hard-earned money to support this fantastic event, as well as those that are quite rightly there to party into the night.  

I didn’t know what to expect, but soon had a degree in cable ties, skriming and branding, locating essential kit in the stores, and supporting with vehicle recovery when the mud won out.  Above all I got a real appreciation of the effort that goes in to raising money in this way. 

I fully intend to be back there again next year and couldn’t be prouder to have then been able to wear my crew badge during the festival itself and to be able to say that I played my part in helping to raise £85,968.00 for children’s cancer charities.  

At Paragon Skills, we work hard every day to deliver the teaching and learning that builds confidence and long-lasting careers, and we know that every Paragon Skills colleague plays an important role in this achievement. We would like to say a huge thank you to our colleagues who contribute their time to volunteering efforts, to help and develop their local communities and encourage everyone to follow in their example in helping to develop our communities in a positive and impactful way.