Roy began his volunteering experience with Crest Co-operative in October 2017, after 10 long years of being out of work. His role has been that of van assistant, and over the last 6 months his commitment to the organisation has been truly amazing. Throughout the long, dark and freezing temperatures of the North Wales winter Roy always stuck at it, turning in pretty much every day to join the van crew in their journeys around the Conwy area. Such is Roy’s work ethic that he even took on the Sunday run to Manchester, alongside one of our other volunteers Kev, not getting back to base until 7pm. At one point, we even had to suggest that he took a day off for fear that the authorities would be after us for over “working” him!
It therefore came as no surprise to the team here at Crest to hear that he had landed himself a job at the prestigious and world-famous Surf Snowdonia.
We caught up with Roy a couple of weeks into his new role to find out how things were going. He said he is “loving it” at the artficial Surf Centre where he now works 6 days a week as a cleaning operative. He has made new friends and is really pleased at how things are going. It didn’t surprise us at Crest to hear that he is making the 18 mile round trip to Dolgarrog every morning by mountain bike!
It goes without saying that this is a guy who is really keen to be in a paid job, and we asked how Crest had helped him on his way. “Crest has been great”, he said. “Volunteering there gave me something to get up for in the morning, something to look forward to every day”. He says he “liked coming to Crest”, and made some good friends. Roy says “I got on well with them there. People like Tim, Lee and Pete, they look out for me, and we had a laugh and joke”.
Roy says that Crest Co-operative boosted his confidence and was able not only to offer a practical volunteering experience, but also support when he began to look for work. This included help in writing his CV, and giving advice on what to expect in an interview and how to best present himself.
But there’s no stopping him! He says “I’ll come back to Crest at a drop of a hat” and talks of trying to find time to help out a bit in the future. “I would recommend Crest to anyone who wants to volunteer” he says.