Tell us a little bit about yourself and your role at St John Ambulance...
I joined St John Ambulance about five years ago because I wanted something medicine related to talk about when applying for medical school. Although, I soon decided being a medical doctor wasn’t the career I wanted, I did want St John Ambulance to stay in my life.
I’ve had a few roles with St John Ambulance. I've enjoyed all of them. I started as a First Aider, then Youth Leader to Ambulance Crew to District Event Officer, and now Event Communications officer.
Outside of St John Ambulance, I work as a senior scientist at a British medical research charity. I spend most of my working days in the lab trying to develop more effective treatment for dementia and cancer.
What does your volunteer role as an Event Communications Officer involve?
As part of the Events Communications Team, our role is to ensure effective and robust communication at events. Also, we manage the technical elements of communications and control services. This involves working very closely with the events team (there is lots of planning and preparation work behind the scenes!).
Within the team, my primary role is to look after event communications at the 24 stadia within the London and South region. This means I spend a lot of time travelling across the region visiting each stadium and providing technical communication support to the St John Ambulance stadium team.
Basically, my role involves going to lots of stadia and playing with radios to make sure the teams on the ground and control room can talk to each other.
What do you enjoy most about your role?
I love the technical/geeky side of my role. Being able to install a communications system for an event and get a crystal clear signal will always put a smile on my face.
The thing I enjoy most is working as part of an amazing team, pulling our effects together to execute an event, even if that might mean working 12-16 hours days several days in a row.
Finally, outside of work, how do you like to spend your free time?
Haha! Between working and volunteering with St John Ambulance, I don’t really have a lot of free time. I do try to squeeze in some time for trying out new restaurants, watching sci-fi movies, and reading a book under a tree every now and then.
Image credit: Graham Lehr
