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The power of Volunteering with support from Iron Mountain

We’re delighted to be hosting our inaugural Scottish Volunteer Awards later this month, with support from our headline sponsor Iron Mountain.

The awards evening will celebrate the fantastic efforts and achievements of our volunteers who have gone above and beyond to keep our clubs running during the Covid-19 pandemic, but to also highlight how volunteers can make a difference to the lives of older people across Scotland.

Ahead of the awards we caught up with Charlie Watt, the National Transport Lead for Iron Mountain, as to why his organisation have committed their backing to us and our volunteers.

“We’ve always tried to support charities at Iron Mountain throughout the years and when we started engaging with Sporting Memories a couple of years ago, where we have seen the great work they do.

“The initial link was via our Director of Business Support Services Graeme Mackie - he is a huge football fan and we were impressed by how the charity uses old football memorabilia to help people living with dementia to remember and starting a conversation with people about the good old days.

“Your charity is a bit like football where it brings people together and Graeme also felt it would be a great fit as you expand your great work of which we have a global footprint to help store your material as required.

“Unfortunately, Graeme’s playing days are behind him but there were so many positives that your charity do we were happy to support. Personally, I have witnessed how powerful that can be and have seen the benefit it can have.

Charlie also reflected on the experience with his mother that meant he could see the value that Sporting Memories clubs and activities provide to its members my using photos and memorabilia to trigger positive emotions and start discussions.

“Communication is such a simple thing and so important in all our lives but especially older people where they need a little support to help remember.

“Sporting Memories work with older people has a profound connection with me, as my mother sadly passed away whilst living with dementia just over 18 months ago. I know how vital your clubs can be to help support others who are living with dementia and their families. Especially over the last couple of years with numerous lock downs your people have volunteered and kept things going.

“Dementia can be a very scary condition and if the clubs and activities can help slow down those affects, then it can only be a good thing.”

The awards will recognise the brilliant volunteers that Sporting Memories currently has across Scotland – and this is something which aligns with Iron Mountain, as they have a strong focus on allowing their own staff to support good causes.

“We see volunteering as a big part of what we do at Iron Mountain as an organisation. Our Moving Mountains program began in 2012, in order to unify and engage its workforce through volunteerism.

“We have a culture where we try to recognise all the efforts our staff make when it comes to volunteering through our Moving Mountains initiative - and I genuinely believe we see the benefits for our employees because it helps employee value as they are doing something which is helping others and their local communities. We are able to give each employee two paid days leave per year as our goal is to demonstrate that we provide over 100,000 hours of volunteering time by 2025.

“Speaking of that culture, we’re actually going to be inviting a couple of our local supervisors to the awards evening as a reward for all their brilliant efforts in terms of volunteering.”

Our thanks go to Iron Mountain for their sponsorship of our Scottish Volunteer Awards evening. If you would like to find out more about how you can volunteer for Sporting Memories, visit here: https://www.sportingmemoriesnetwork.com/why-volunteer-with-us