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01483 426990

Charity no. 285543

Bringing learning and life-changing opportunities to people of all ages

Volunteering changes lives
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Volunteering

Swingbridge Community Boats

Our work - a summary

My life with the Surrey Care Trust

Clive Sims is a volunteer with Swingbridge Community Boats.

Clive spent his working life at a computer, applying his mathematical brain to the world of business.

So when he retired at the beginning of 2009 from his long career in mathematical modelling (it’s applying maths to produce forecasts and help organisations to plan for the future), he decided it was time to live for the day and do something completely different. To use his hands rather than his mind, and to be out in the great outdoors, rather than tied to a desk.

When he signed up with the Guildford Volunteer Centre, they knew they had the perfect outlet for the Clive’s practical talents, on the Surrey Care Trust’s Swingbridge Community Boats.

“It’s doing something more physical than mental that is so appealing,” says Clive.

“In my job I could have provided you with the formula ‘to normalise a matrix of own and cross price elasticities’ - and I did that all the time. But I don’t have to any more. Now I can enjoy making things and doing things where you have a physical article afterwards or you can see in front of you what you have achieved.”...

More about Clive’s story...

“It’s a matter of being companionable. I am never going to be one of the lads… I am too old and serious for that.”