{"id":13135,"date":"2017-07-20T15:01:10","date_gmt":"2017-07-20T14:01:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/armanios.co.uk\/dev\/sia\/?p=13135"},"modified":"2017-08-10T11:37:12","modified_gmt":"2017-08-10T10:37:12","slug":"tim-nicholson-sia-journey-fundraiser-volunteer-staff-member","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/armanios.co.uk\/dev\/sia\/tim-nicholson-sia-journey-fundraiser-volunteer-staff-member\/","title":{"rendered":"Tim Nicholson: My SIA journey from fundraiser to volunteer to staff member"},"content":{"rendered":"

Back in the mists of time, before most of my hair fell out and my beard turned grey, I\u2019d regularly run marathons. \u00a0I\u2019d even done some high-profile ones such as Paris.\u00a0\u00a0 However, my friends said that I wasn\u2019t a \u201cproper\u201d marathoner because I\u2019d not run London (and that was the only real marathon in their eyes).<\/strong><\/p>\n

So, in a fit of pique, I entered the ballot for the London Marathon 2007.\u00a0 To my utter astonishment, I was allocated a place.\u00a0\u00a0 On hearing the news, everyone I knew expected me to run for a charity.\u00a0 But which one?\u00a0\u00a0 There were just so many good causes.\u00a0 In the end, I stuck a pin in the charities section of the phonebook and it landed on the Spinal Injuries Association (which I\u2019d never even heard of). So, by pure luck rather than judgement, I ended up as an SIA fundraiser.<\/p>\n

Fast-forward by the best part of a decade to last year.\u00a0 I\u2019d spent all of my career working for H M Revenue & Customs (as an Anti-Evasion Specialist) and expected to see out my remaining working years with the Department.\u00a0 Then, the bombshell hit!\u00a0 It was decided, at short notice, to close our Milton Keynes Office.<\/p>\n

Luckily, HM Revenue & Customs agreed to give me a severance package (rather than forcing me to commute to London or Birmingham).\u00a0 This left our family financially secure.\u00a0\u00a0 Great in one sense.\u00a0 However, I found myself at a real loose end during the week (when my wife was slaving away at work).<\/p>\n

For a while, I kept out of trouble by tackling all the incredibly dull household jobs that we\u2019d avoided for years.\u00a0\u00a0 Fun things like cleaning out the garage (I so hate spiders and there were some utter monsters in there).\u00a0\u00a0 Eventually though, I reached the bottom of the task list and started to get seriously bored.\u00a0 After all, there\u2019s only so many coffee shops anyone can visit each day.<\/p>\n

What to do to occupy myself?\u00a0\u00a0 I had no idea whatsoever.\u00a0 Then, came a eureka moment. \u00a0\u00a0I\u2019d \u2018give something\u2019 back by volunteering.\u00a0\u00a0 But what and where?\u00a0\u00a0 My wife suggested the SIA, as she remembered how impressed I\u2019d been by the charity back when I\u2019d run the London Marathon in its colours.<\/p>\n

So, in late Autumn 2016, I went down to SIA House for a coffee and chat with Jen Sims, the Volunteer Co-ordinator.\u00a0 She was so welcoming and her energy and enthusiasm were contagious.\u00a0 I signed up straightaway.<\/p>\n

During my first few weeks as a volunteer, I did tasks for a number of different teams.\u00a0 However, as time went on, I found myself increasingly working with Dan Burden, the SIA\u2019s Head of Public Affairs (whom I sat opposite).\u00a0\u00a0 He very much threw me in at the deep end.\u00a0 However, that was great, as being \u2018challenged\u2019 was exactly what I needed after several weeks of not using my grey matter.<\/p>\n

After a few months though, very happy as I was at SIA House, I started to worry about not bringing in a wage.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t that our family were short of money.\u00a0 More, it was a sort of primal urge to \u2018put bread on the table\u2019.\u00a0\u00a0 So, I applied for a couple of part-time jobs.\u00a0 To my surprise, I was straightaway invited to interviews and was told (off record) that I was likely to be offered one or both.<\/p>\n

The prospect of getting a paid job so quickly should have filled me with absolute delight.\u00a0 However, it actually made me a bit sad, as it would likely have meant saying goodbye to SIA House.<\/p>\n

However, Lady Luck smiled on me.\u00a0\u00a0 A part-time vacancy arose for at the SIA, which I jumped at.\u00a0 So, since mid-April, I\u2019ve been the charity\u2019s Public Affairs Officer, enabling me to continue to work with Dan Burden, but in a paid role.<\/p>\n

The work is very varied and extremely rewarding.\u00a0 A large chunk of my time is spent on research (which was ironically one of my specialisms in H M Revenue and Customs).\u00a0 I also write articles for the SIA\u2019s \u201cForward\u201d magazine, assist with campaigning, and am involved with lobbying Ministers and Members of Parliament.<\/p>\n

In a sense, I\u2019ve \u2018completed the circle\u2019 in recent weeks, inasmuch as I\u2019m training to run the Berlin Marathon 2017 (on 24 September) to fundraise for the SIA. \u00a0Training has been super-tough in the heat of recent weeks (especially for an old boy like me).\u00a0 But so far, so good.\u00a0 If nothing else, I\u2019m building up an absolutely fabulous tan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Back in the mists of time, before most of my hair fell out and my beard turned grey, I\u2019d regularly…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6907,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[332],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/armanios.co.uk\/dev\/sia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13135"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/armanios.co.uk\/dev\/sia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/armanios.co.uk\/dev\/sia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/armanios.co.uk\/dev\/sia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6907"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/armanios.co.uk\/dev\/sia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13135"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/armanios.co.uk\/dev\/sia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13135\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/armanios.co.uk\/dev\/sia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/armanios.co.uk\/dev\/sia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/armanios.co.uk\/dev\/sia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}