Lambeth - The Volunteers

[Worldwide Faith News]

Lambeth Daily
The Volunteers
Posted On : August 1, 2008 5:31 PM | Posted By : Webmaster
Related Categories: News

The Lambeth Conference isn’t just a story of 
Bishops and the ‘great and good’. One of the 
largest groups of people around on the campus is 
the 300 volunteers from Canterbury Diocese – they 
are the ones with the yellow lanyards and/or sashes.

Their contribution will pass by unnoticed by the 
world’s media, who are looking for more 
contentious stories, but without it the Lambeth 
Conference would have been “an unholy mess” as 
one of the volunteer coordinators put it. They 
are the smiling faces on the Enquiry Desk, the 
‘human signposts’ who make sure that delegates 
(and others) can find their way round the 
University campus, the people who keep the queues 
moving in the restaurants and many, many other duties.

Most of the 300 people took their diaries, drew a 
big ‘x’ across the three weeks of the Conference 
and said “What can I do?”. People like Rosemary, 
‘The Woolie Lady’, who has been overseeing the 
packing and distribution of the results of a 
Diocesan appeal for warm clothing, in addition to 
her shifts as part of the Enquiry Desk team.

The Volunteers’ motto has been “How can I help 
you?” and the staff on the Enquiry Desk are just 
as likely to be asked where a Bishop can get 
their glasses fixed as anything about the conference programme!

Spare a thought for them as they have all said 
that they will miss the work when the Conference 
is over and without them the admin wouldn’t have run so smoothly.

You can see what the volunteers have been up to 
at their website at http://tinyurl.com/5e4yek