Student Trustee Profile – Caitlin, Secretary
Caitlin is a final year student, but she started volunteering for Discovery in her second year. Originally, she decided to volunteer to boost her employability as she wanted to do a placement year as part of her degree, but after beginning volunteering on a number of projects her motives shifted.
Discovery is a student run and student led organisation, and that is what is at the heart of the charity, what makes it so special. It gives students the power and opportunity to make a real difference in their community whilst also gaining real-life leadership and professional experience., Caitlin was therefore able to jump right into Discovery as a Project Coordinator. PC’s are the people who run the individual projects, and there are around 50 of them all together. During her Start Here interview, Caitlin mentioned an interest in leadership experience, and as a position as PC for Age Exchange was available, she took it up. During her first year at discovery, she took part in a number of different projects alongside being Project Coordinator of Age Exchange, such as Unity in Diversity, and Buddied Reading. By doing these projects, she realised that there was more to get out of Discovery than just employability skills. It was the hopes of employability that made her start, but seeing the different Discovery makes that made her stay.
After having had a year in a leadership role as Project Coordinator, it seemed a natural progression into a trustee role. As I previously mentioned, the emphasis at Discovery is that it is student run and student led, and therefore having student trustees is such an important part of it. As secretary, Caitlin’s role involves helping to make important decisions about the organisation, observing the running of discovery, and overlooking projects to ensure everything is running smoothly. Having been in and out of the office a lot for the various different projects, Caitlin got to see a bit of the running of Discovery. She wanted a chance to have a say on what happens; therefore, the next step was for her to become a trustee, and play her own part in running it. Alongside being a trustee, Caitlin still works on projects, and is currently the PC for the Circus Eruption project.
Caitlin is a first-hand example of how Discovery can help with employability. After joining in hopes of boosting her CV for a placement year, she did just that. The skills she developed by volunteering and being a PC enabled her to get the placement she wanted. Some of the main things she developed were communication and confidence to speak in front of different groups. Alongside this, however, is the importance of the work that Discovery does in making a difference to the community. The main message Caitlin put across to me was that she could not recommend Discovery and the positive impact it has, enough.