Meeting of the Parliament

Meeting date: Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Official Report 690KB pdf

---

Time for Reflection

Good afternoon. The first item of business is time for reflection. Our time for reflection leader today is Paul O’Kane, who is development officer at the Volunteer Centre East Dunbartonshire.

At the head of this new year, our thoughts naturally turn to resolutions—deciding to make changes in our lives and to do something differently in the year ahead.

I am reminded of the words of Robert Burns, which many of us will have sung only 10 days ago:

“And there’s a hand, my trusty fiere!

And gie’s a hand o’ thine!”

Burns creates a picture of reaching our hands out to others while also acknowledging our human need for help and support from those around us. I believe that volunteers offer that helping hand. They come from many different backgrounds and tell a variety of stories. It is important that they become visible in this great building and beyond.

In East Dunbartonshire, I meet volunteers every day who give their time and energy quietly and without show, because they want to improve their communities, strengthen our society and gain new skills and opportunities. I think of Ian Hector, a befriender from Lenzie, who told me that

“Volunteering as a Befriender provides an opportunity to talk, to listen, to share, to receive, to laugh and even sometimes to cry.”

Lauren Mullen, who is a 17-year-old volunteer from Turnbull high school in Bishopbriggs, always tells me that she has learned so much through volunteering. Lauren said:

“I want everyone to have the chance to learn as much as I have. All too often volunteering is seen as just something people do without thinking”,

but volunteers do think and their thoughts are of immense value to us all.

At the volunteer centre, we believe that everyone should be encouraged and enabled to volunteer. What would happen if we all woke up tomorrow and there were no volunteers—nobody to run the lunch club, no one to tutor those who have learning needs and no one to run social activity groups for those who have disabilities? What if there were no fundraisers for charity, no youth groups and nobody to foster animals that are neglected? The list goes on, but the answer is always the same: the country would slow down, grind to a halt and begin to fall apart.

Volunteers are the thread that holds together the rich fabric of our society, coming from all walks of life, all cultures, and all abilities but with the same goal, which is to serve the common good and to change Scotland for the better.

Volunteer Centre East Dunbartonshire wishes Parliament well in its endeavours, and we look forward to your continued support over the months and years ahead as we give volunteers a voice and make the invisible visible.