Will Bloor, a Graduate Consultant (North West) at NECS, shares his experience volunteering as part of a team of NECS consultants with MyCWA, a charity that supports individuals and families affected by domestic abuse. The day was spent helping to paint one of their safe crisis homes.
“I have been an active member of my team’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) working group since joining NECS two years ago. NECS Consultancy is very proactive at ensuring that we fulfil our CSR commitments and offers a range of volunteering opportunities for staff to get involved in each year. Every NECS employee is allocated time to encourage them to take a day away from the office each year to support a volunteering initiative. This can be for an individual cause, charity, or local community group of the employee’s choice. With the scale and breadth of NECS staff across England, using these volunteering days each year can have a colossal cumulative impact on the communities we live in.
“On Monday 5 August 2024, a team of NECS consultants replaced their laptops with brushes and rollers as they helped paint a safe crisis home run by the charity MyCWA. MyCWA are a Cheshire-based charity who aim to build a community where adults and children can live free from the fear of domestic abuse. These refuge homes are a vital shelter for families fleeing situations of domestic abuse. Last year, the NECS Consultancy North West team built a relationship with MyCWA through arranging for one of their training managers to come into our office to deliver some training on domestic abuse awareness. On this day, we also organised a clothes donation drive where the team donated old clothes to MyCWA for them to use in their charity shops. We chose to work with MyCWA because of the incredible work they do in our region and our desire as a team to contribute to their mission to help build a community free from the fear of domestic abuse.
“I got back in touch with MyCWA’s Volunteer Lead in June, expressing our interest for a small group of NECS Consultants to use our volunteering days to help the charity. In response, MyCWA outlined that one of their safe crisis properties needed painting and any help we could provide would be incredibly useful.
“After sourcing a team of four NECS consultants to take part, I was sent a copy of the charity’s liability insurance and risk assessment which I used to put together our own risk assessment for the volunteering day, in partnership with the NECS health and safety team.
“We arrived at MyCWA’s office in Crewe on the morning of Monday 5 August, where we were greeted by MyCWA’s Volunteer Lead and were transported to the safe crisis home. The charity kindly provided us with all the materials needed to paint the property, including rollers, paint brushes, dust sheets, tape, emulsion paint and wood paint. We managed to successfully paint a couple of rooms between us, throughout the day.
“The charity volunteer leads were incredibly impressed with the work we managed to do and thanked us for the difference we would be making to the lives of those in the refuge. It honestly felt great to know how, in just one day of volunteering, we could have such a positive impact on the lives of people in our region. Despite me being covered in paint by the end of the day (lesson learnt: wear more appropriate painting attire next time), it was a fantastic way to use my volunteering day! Thanks must go to the staff at MyCWA for how helpful they were in getting everything organised for us and for facilitating such a rewarding day!”