The Volunteering Team at Royal Holloway, University of London will be working with the Surrey-based charity, LinkAble, to launch a new a choir for adults with learning disabilities in the local area.
The choir will be a social action initiative led by Royal Holloway student volunteers, supported by experienced choir mentor, Alison Wrigley from Surrey Arts, as a result of funding from LinkAble.
Kicking off in September, the choir will aim to bring people from the local community together to make new friends, learn new skills, and have fun through the joy of singing. A taster session will be held at Royal Holloway’s Egham campus on Wednesday 5 June, at 1.30pm, where people are welcome to drop in on the day.
Speaking of the new choir, Phil Simcock, Volunteering Manager at Royal Holloway, said: “We’re very proud of our volunteers here at Royal Holloway, and their commitment to the work they do within the community.
“We’re very excited about the new partnership with LinkAble, and their support in assisting us to set up a choir that we believe will have a great positive impact on the local community.”
The choir taster session will take place within Volunteers’ Week, where, from 1 to 7 June 2019, volunteers from up and down the country will celebrate their achievements and commitment to volunteering.
Staff and students at Royal Holloway will be marking Volunteers’ Week with a number of other events across campus and in the local community, such as:
- Litter picking and gardening in Egham town centre
- Assisting with food bank collection in Virginia Lodge, in collaboration with Runnymede Foodbank
- Painting the Englefield Green Scout HQ
- Hosting a visit from school children from St Jude’s School in Englefield Green. They will be visiting the university’s Community Garden on campus as part of Grow Wild, an intuitive funded by Royal Botanical Gardens.
The annual Runnymede and Spelthorne Volunteer Awards will also be held at Royal Holloway on Tuesday 4 June, to recognise and celebrate the voluntary contributions made by people of all ages in the Runnymede and Spelthorne areas.
These awards are hosted by Royal Holloway Volunteering and Voluntary Support North Surrey, with the support of Runnymede and Spelthorne Borough Councils, and Enterprise Rent-A-Car. The guest speaker is Wendy Solesbury MBE, National Youth Development Manager for British Red Cross, with special performance from local group the Revelaires.
Royal Holloway has an ever growing voluntary presence in the local community, for which it has won The Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service. The award was bestowed upon Royal Holloway’s Community Action for work in helping build strong communities by inspiring students to volunteer and lead projects to support local organisations.
To find out more about the choir and how you can be involved, please email volunteering@royalholloway.ac.uk or for further information about Royal Holloway Volunteering visit royalholloway.ac.uk/volunteering.
