Volunteering and Social Intrapreneurs
I only ever cared about myself!
So the above statement seems like a strange way to start a blog about doing things for other people, however I wanted to make it quite clear about where my mind used to be as I take you through my journey of volunteering and my views on Social Intrapreneurs and their importance in today’s society.
Before I go into my journey, I thought it best to let you know a little about me, what I do and where I am from. My name is Andy Lee and as I write this blog I’m 31, I work for The Royal Bank of Scotland as a Business Analyst, which mainly involves me spending my time working with systems and databases, I am a Welshman who lives in Birmingham, having moved here to go to university, I fell in love with the city and stayed here to progress my career.
I currently volunteer as a School Governor at Selly Park Technology College for Girls representing the Local Education Authority (LEA), TEDxBrum & Hub Birmingham, of which I will go into more detail in further blogs but prior to that I wanted to revisit the start of the blog.
So my opening statement, which I have thought about removing numerous times but feel it is important for me to be honest with you and myself, before I tell the world about what I do. If I look back to 12 months ago just after I had turned 30 I had just attended my first school governor meeting, which I had volunteered for quite honestly to make my CV look good and get some extra experience outside of work and it was doing what I expected, my CV showed me doing what is essentially a very important role for a school, I was getting some extra experience but I never once really thought that I was giving back to the community but more helping myself whilst other people congratulated me on giving back.
Fast forward 9 months and I get a Facebook message out of the blue from a girl in Birmingham Immy Kaur, asking if I wanted to meet up to discuss getting involved with TEDxBrum, of which I accepted and though excellent another thing to put on the CV. Before meeting up with her I attended a good friends memorial service to celebrate 5 years since his passing with friends and his Family, now this event is the single one thing that flipped my opening statement on its head and made me take a long hard look at myself.
My friend Adam Clayton, was the typical good looking, funny, caring friend, who was always up for a laugh and on top of that a talented golfer, he had the world at his feet, but was struck down far before his time with a brain tumor, as I said he had the world at his feet, his golf was going well and he was working out in Portugal teaching people to play golf and lowering his handicap, but the thing that set him aside from most people was that he genuinely cared about helping other people and gave up a lot of his own time to raise money, and help kids from his local area with golf lessons.
The reason I bring this all up, is the conversation I had with his dad that weekend, it made me realize a few things and I actually felt quite guilty, I was helping other people out but for my own ends and that wasn’t right, especially when I think about all Adam had to give but isn’t around to do it, so I spent the next few days really challenging my thinking and realised I had been looking at everything I was doing in the wrong way.
Its not about me, its about others, I am privileged to have had supportive parents who helped me become the person I am, and without them I am sure I wouldn’t have the career I do, which in its essence allows me the ability to help other people, and it was this realization that has opened a door to a world that I was very skeptical about.
I met with Immy the week after and she invited me to join the core team of TEDxBrum to work on the Sponsorship and CSR element, I snapped her hand off as it now meant I had an opportunity to shape an event that is going to make a difference to others in my city.
We can all learn something from those people in our lives that care about helping other people, I’ve learned more about myself over the last 6 months having spent the time understanding what drives them and why they do it. So why don’t you have a go, there is always someone in your life who helps others, so pick that person and have a chat with them to understand why they do it, it may just change the direction of your life.
