VOLUNTEER HUB Kaya Gromocki Volunteering and Engagement Officer
It has been a great start to the year for our volunteer programme, especially for our home-based roles that require a specialist skill set. We have been lucky enough to recruit Mary Farrell, Peter O’Boyle, Simone Hencke and Sian Leigh who are all on board and supporting our Digital Communications Team with website work, social media strategy and digital content creation. These volunteers are bringing us valuable knowledge that they have gained from their experience in software development, project management, environmental studies and digital marketing. Thank you to all of them for contributing these skills to our workforce, along with their passion and understanding of veganism. I would also like to say a huge well done to Charis Collier, our Volunteer of the Season from Issue 3 2020, who has now joined the Marketing Team as a full time staff member, in the role of Marketing Assistant.
Future Normal stories Outside of our virtual office bubble, work is also being completed by our Community Network to accelerate and strengthen our biggest ever campaign, Future Normal. That is why in this issue I have chosen to highlight the task that our Community Network volunteers are currently working on. In February, we asked the Network to help us to spread the message of our Future Normal campaign by sourcing stories for us. We were looking for emotive stories that show a personal connection with animals, the journey those animals have been on and the difference that compassion has made to their lives. We particularly asked volunteers to find us stories about farmed animals who have been rehomed or adopted.
Meet ‘the girls’ The results were heart-warming. First up we had one of our very own volunteers contribute her story. Chris is a Community Organiser based in Cornwall. At the start of the pandemic, she adopted three pigs who she affectionately refers to as the ‘the girls’. Chris persuaded her neighbours to
32 | The Vegan Issue 2 2021
