{"id":228,"date":"2021-11-02T11:28:00","date_gmt":"2021-11-02T11:28:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/?p=228"},"modified":"2023-04-20T09:54:06","modified_gmt":"2023-04-20T08:54:06","slug":"how-i-found-volunteering-as-a-virtual-buddy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/blog\/how-i-found-volunteering-as-a-virtual-buddy\/","title":{"rendered":"How I found volunteering as a Virtual Buddy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"is-style-intro\">Andrew signed up to\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/get-involved\/volunteering-with-sense\/volunteer-as-a-sense-virtual-buddy\/\">volunteer as a Virtual Buddy<\/a>\u00a0in 2020. He tells us about the connection he&#8217;s built with his buddy Chris.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The start of the pandemic in 2020 was a tough time for me and I knew there must be many other people out there who felt the same. So, when the email from Sense came to volunteer with people virtually, I signed myself up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Little did I know at the time how valuable this connection would be for both Chris (my newly matched virtual buddy) and I.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"682\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/blog-andrew-virtual-buddy-1024x682.jpg\" alt=\"A man stands side on. He has long brown hair and glasses. He's wearing a black t-shirt and his arm is stretched out. It's Andrew. \/ --\" class=\"wp-image-240\"\/ style=\"object-position: 38.47% 36.74%;\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/blog-andrew-virtual-buddy-1024x682.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/blog-andrew-virtual-buddy-450x300.jpg 450w, https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/blog-andrew-virtual-buddy-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/blog-andrew-virtual-buddy-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/blog-andrew-virtual-buddy-1050x700.jpg 1050w, https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/blog-andrew-virtual-buddy-900x600.jpg 900w, https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/blog-andrew-virtual-buddy-600x400.jpg 600w, https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/blog-andrew-virtual-buddy-350x233.jpg 350w, https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/blog-andrew-virtual-buddy-1600x1066.jpg 1600w, https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/blog-andrew-virtual-buddy.jpg 2000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><figcaption>Andrew started volunteering as a Virtual Buddy<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">We got to know each other<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>For Chris, the best way to get in touch was over the phone so we arranged weekly phone calls. The Sense team had given me a bit of background information about him so, during those first few weeks, we were really just getting to know each other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As we are of a similar age, both of us growing up in the 70s and 80s, we found we had a lot of generational commonalities to discuss. Soon, we found our conversations overrunning as we talked about increasing deep and complicated issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Chris would fill me in on North Korean history<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>There was a time when Chris was reading the Michael Palin book on North Korea. Every week, he would fill me in on its history and politics which I found fascinating as I didn\u2019t know too much about the subject.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Many times, when we talk, Chris challenges me to rethink my views as he is very well informed on current affairs and actively follows world news sites.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">It&#8217;s wonderful to have someone like Chris<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>None of my past experiences with Sense prepared me for the relationship I have developed with Chris. It is really wonderful to have someone to talk to that challenges me in the way that he does.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As the world felt its way through a pandemic, having our weekly calls is one of the things in my life that had remained constant.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Andrew signed up to\u00a0volunteer as a virtual buddy\u00a0in 2020. He tells us about the connection he&#8217;s built with his buddy Chris.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":240,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_searchwp_excluded":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"display_author":[113],"class_list":["post-228","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","display_author-andrew"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=228"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=228"},{"taxonomy":"display_author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sense.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/display_author?post=228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}