Extraordinary figures revealed at Volunteer Centre's 40-year birthday bash

The special event revealed that over the last twelve months there were 6,951 volunteers working across the district, totalling 588,270.25 hours and ‘raising’ an impressive tally of £7,353,378.12p based on an average of £12.50 per hour.
Top charities were Newbury & District Agricultural Society, which took part in the Newbury Show with 95,436 volunteer hours and Newbury Community Resource Centre, which recycle and promote the re-use of household objects with 46,765 volunteer hours.
Director of Volunteer Centre Garry Poulson said: “There was a good group of people and they were all absolutely astonished by the figures. It requires a lot of work but it was worth it.
“It underpins the sheer volume of community engagement going on in West Berkshire and every area in life was covered by the organisations that responded, which is important. It wasn’t a competition to see who has done the most but saying that most people have got a stake in West Berkshire.”
One hundred and twenty representatives from 92 organisations gathered at the Long Gallery at Englefield House on Saturday and were joined by Newbury MP Richard Benyon, chairman of West Berkshire Council Jeff Beck, Deputy Newbury Town Mayor Howard Bairstow and chairman of Greenham Parish Council Patrick Planterose.
The next big event, “probably the biggest event in our calendar” according to Mr Poulson will be in January with the 2015 Volunteer Recruitment Fair at the Corn Exchange which aims to attract more much-needed volunteers to the many and varied charitable projects across the district.