I cannot believe it has been 10 years!!!!!!!!!
I started in the summer as the Peterborough support group leader and the December I volunteered for the social media team. I also did shifts on the helpline back in the day which was really rewarding.
The following year I took on the role of social media coordinator, which I did for several years and still help on occasion creating images and bits for them because I enjoy it
When I qualified 5 years ago as a therapist, I then started doing bits and pieces for the professional side of things, supporting them and offering webinars and education sessions for the patient audience.
Within a year or so of qualifying, I moved over fully to the professional side, becoming the professional educator coordinator alongside Dr Philip Bull.
I still offer patient education sessions and weekly relaxation sessions for the @hmsacharity as I am passionate about empowering the audience with knowledge to self-manage better
What do I do now in the professional role?
Most recently with Dr Bull, we created the 'Hypermobility quick reference guide' for the British Society of Rheumatologists (BSR) conference and Dr Bull took this and presented a video about hypermobility. It was his brainchild I took and created it and made it a reality for him.
This is now being updated for our next project, which I will talk about soon! Â
Educating professionals on hypermobility syndromes and most recently I did a webinar on this subject for Mast Cell Action as we find a lot of symptomatic hypermobile folk have MCAS and they presented for us. Teamwork makes the dream work
I support professionals when they do webinars for us, I'm usually in the background facilitating alongside our wonderful link fairy, and I'm also the little voice reading out the questions for them so when it's replayed, the audience knows what question was asked in the chat box.
I absolutely adore volunteering for them, and I hope to continue to do so for many more years to come
I hope you enjoyed my volunteering journey post, I don't post much at all about it so I thought it would be good to do so.
Kim
Thank you for everything.
Mellow Monday relaxation sessions are now such an enjoyable part of my week, I can't remember a time when I didn't join them.
Congratulations and thank you for everything you do. Amazing. Best wishes Rose
KIM…YOU STAR!!
i only joined HMSA last summer as a newly diagnosed EDS,PoTS, arthritis etc bod.
You have offered SO much support and encouragement to us all and shared tremendous knowledge and experience which i have found vital support personally.
I love the sessions you share with Jo and your relaxation practices, particularly those with the educational explanations beforehand.
I am really grateful for your continued support and also hope that you continue to be inspired to carry on as a key member of the HMSA team.
So thankyou for your dedicated decade. I only wish that i had found HMS sooner.
Thanks Kim for all your volunteering efforts to help people with Hypermobility