Red Cross Blogs

Our husband and wife volunteer team – Colin and Gill Moffat

By Mark Cox
July 13, 2009 at 5:50 pm

Why do some people decide to become volunteers – and what drives them to keep on giving up their time to help others?

In this interview, long-term Red Cross volunteers – and married couple – Colin and Gill Moffat talk about some of the challenges they face and the satisfaction they get from helping people in crisis.

Our husband and wife volunteer team – Colin and Gill Moffat

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Mark: Why do some people decide to become volunteers and what drives them to keep giving up their time to help others? In this interview long term Red Cross Volunteers and married couple Colin and Gill Moffat talk about some of the challenges they face and the satisfaction they get from helping people in crisis.

Colin: My name is Colin and I’m a volunteer in north east Scotland. I’ve been a volunteer for more than thirty years. This makes me a newcomer, or relative newcomer in comparison to my wife Gill who has been a volunteer for more than thirty five years.

Gill: I got involved with the Red Cross because my mum sent me, simple as that. However, it is a fantastic global movement and I’ve stayed around for a very long time.

Colin: As to a typical volunteering day, there isn’t a things such as a typical volunteering day for me. I’ve just spent a weekend at a music festival near Inverness where I was doing first aid, and we had lots of different things to do. 35,000 people, 800 causalities everything from a skinned knee to people just having a wee bit too much to drink or a wee bit too much in terms of the drugs. What we got to do was everything, we had lots of causalities and we were busy and it was fantastic.

Gill: Probably one of the most memorable things for me as a volunteer with the Red Cross happened in Albania. We’re an amazing global movement but we are one big family and everybody helps each other. An whilst I was in Albania, the Albanian Red Cross simply knew I was there, they had worst floods they’d had in forty years, they were short of volunteers and they got in touch and said “come on Gill we need a bit of a hand, can you come and help us?”. And we were delivering food, blankets, essential items for people who had lost everything. They had absolutely nothing, nowhere to sleep, nothing to eat and the Red Cross was there making a huge difference.

Colin: If you’re thinking of getting involved with the Red Cross then just do it. Don’t wait, don’t hold back. Become a volunteer with the Red Cross. The opportunities are huge, you’ll meet lots of different people and you’ll really enjoy it.

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Tags: emergency response, First aid, peer education, Volunteering, volunteers

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