Serving Aldershot, Camberley, Farnborough, Farnham, Fleet,  Frimley, Godalming, Guildford, Lightwater and Yateley England in affiliation with the Phyllis Tuckwell Hospice. Area Organisers Report 2009 This year we currently have 44 volunteers, which has enabled us to have a busy and productive year. We are pleased to welcome new recruits from our previous training course.     Our role as an Area Organiser (AO) is meeting and assessing new referrals that come into the office. We then assign a volunteer to the patient. As the volunteer begins their visits we keep in touch with them by monthly reports, if they have any worries or concerns about their patient we are at the end of the telephone. We also support the volunteer if they have any personal worries or concerns, sometimes they are in very difficult situations and we try to support them in any way we can. We work as a team and support each other.  We work very closely with Linda, our administrator, who passes the referrals onto us and accumulates all the figures needed for our statistics.     As volunteers we visit on a weekly basis offering about 3hrs with the patient, they are amazed that it is on a voluntary basis to do whatever is needed.  Often the patients are weak, frail and worried about their illness. The simple tasks around the house like shopping, ironing and dusting can be very onerous and offers of help are welcome, while doing these we can listen, support our patients and show that we care.   We also support the carers and family often sitting with the patient to allow them some free time, a listening ear and a cup of tea can make such a huge difference.  A lady who is house bound looking after her very poorly husband is given a few hours off each week to have lunch with a friend or have her hair done and is enabled to continue in her caring role.   Volunteer Chairman’s Report Treasurer’s Report Area Organisers Report Training Coordinator’s Report Affiliated to the Phyllis Tuckwell Hospice Registered Charity No. 1024866 Monica’s Website Design and Flexisoft L.L.C. www.hospicehomesupport.org.uk As AOs we are so grateful for the all the hard work and commitment the volunteers have given us this last year, without this HHS would not exist. Our work as volunteers is truly rewarding, we are accepted into the homes of patients at a sad and difficult time, visiting and becoming friends is our privilege. This extract from Walk to Jerusalem by Gerald Hughes perhaps best explains our role.        ‘’The gift of being a good listener, a gift which requires constant practice, is perhaps the most healing gift that anyone can possess, for it allows the other to be, enfolds them in a safe place, does not judge or advise them, accepts them as they are without desiring to change them, and communicates support at a deeper level than words’’. Brenda Francis Janet Neilson Tina Harrison   Area Organisers 2009