Live chat for BHF Volunteers

Take part in our very first Volunteer Live Chat on Tuesday 5^th October between 4pm and 6pm. Our Chief Executive, Peter Hollins, and Fundraising Director, Aneesha Moreira will both be on hand on the BHF blog to discuss your comments, ideas, feedback and questions.

You can submit your question in advance or on the day by:

• Emailing internet@bhf.org.uk with your question and "Live chat" in the subject line
  
• Posting a question on our Facebook fan page
• Sending us a "tweet" with your question using the hashtag #BHFQs.

We will answer all the questions on this blog we receive on our blog, so keep an eye out for your question and answer.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Sue's big day out

We get so many volunteers who do so much amazing work for us. We're really grateful that people devote their time to help out - you're all helping us to finally beat heart disease, together!

You can find our British Heart Foundation shops on nearly every high street (find your nearest one here), and they raise loads of money to help us fund our heart research, helplines, doctors and nurses. They're also a huge part of the community, as volunteer Sue Woodrow recently found out at the Colchester shop:

"Serena the Manageress of the shop greeted me and showed me around, I was introduced to John the Assistant Manager and all the dedicated volunteers. All the staff were very friendly and I was made to feel very welcome.

"There were lots of bags of clothes and bric a brac to sort out into various trolleys and bags and then clothes were steamed, tagged and placed on hangers, bric a brac was priced accordingly before all was sent to the shop floor. Thank you all for my cups of tea to keep me going.

"Mike and Jill showed me how to tag the clothes, more involved than I thought, had to put in different codes for different items on the price tickets, thank you both for being patient with me.

"I would like to say how hard Serena, John and their staff work and the dedication they showed, the shop was very well run and I was pleased to be part of the team. Thank you for making my day enjoyable!"

Find out more about how to volunteer for us.

Volunteer today!

This month is Volunteering Month at the BHF.

Volunteering is an incredibly rewarding experience – you can end up going to amazing places like Rhys Morgan who is organising a trip to Everest, doing great things for your community, meeting new people and improving your persuasive skills!

Jackie Brambles, host of ITV’s Loose Women, is lending her support to our campaign to get more people involved in volunteering for the BHF.

She says: “Giving a hand to the British Heart Foundation is a great way to support the charity and it can also be incredibly rewarding.

“There are so many ways you can get involved with supporting the lifesaving work of the BHF- from placing collection boxes and volunteering in a BHF Shop to organising your own event, such as a coffee morning. Whatever you choose to do, you’ll be able to take pride in the fact you’ve taken time to help the charity's work in saving lives and fighting heart disease.”

You can read more about volunteering for the BHF on our website

Time to help?

Some of our volunteers have taken part in this short video below to help us promote our upcoming campaign to recruit more BHF volunteers.

Have a quick watch, and then if you think you'd like to join our growing army of volunteers then you can find out more here - thanks for your time, enjoy the video!

Meet our volunteers...

This April BHF Shops are looking for volunteers to help out in some of our 580 shops across the UK.

Maybe you think helping out in a charity shop is something for older, retired people?

Think again. Our volunteers come from all walks of life, young, old, retired, students. It doesn't matter who you are - we're just looking for enthusiasm.

Take Caroline, pictured top right. She's became a volunteer in order to make friends when she moved to the UK.

Or Brian, who's found a renewed sense of confidence since volunteering.

Meet more of our volunteers and find out how you can make a difference too.

Volunteers are celebrated with National Week

Our BHF volunteers are highly valued members of our team and play a vital role in our fundraising and awareness work.

And what better week to recognise their hard work and commend them for it than this week - National Volunteers' Week (1-7 June).

Volunteers' Week is the UK's annual celebration of the work volunteers do. During the Week events are held across the country to recognise, reward and recruit volunteers.

And, as part of Volunteers' Week, a cross-party report is calling for more people to be allowed flexibility when taking time off work or academic studies to participate in volunteer work.

Do you think that workplaces should be more flexible to accommodate volunteers? Or are you a BHF volunteer who'd like to share your story about what it's like to work as one?

If you've got some spare time and the idea of volunteering appeals, then why not find out more about how you can help.