Kate Hufton: Volunteers Spotlight

My name is Kate and I am in my 3rd year of Volunteering for EHAAT. I retired after nearly 40 years involved in Education and decided I wanted to use some of the skills I had developed in that time to support a charity. My husband is an advanced motorcyclist locally and his group have been involved in fundraising for EHAAT so it was an obvious choice for me.

Being a volunteer is very fulfilling. I enjoy working with an amazing team at the Buntingford shop as well as being part of the reception and Visitor Centre tour team at North Weald where I get to see the AW169 close up and see the crew and staff in action.

My other role is giving talks and being involved in events within the community including WI groups, Rotary, Yarn Bombers and Mind groups.

Talking to school groups gives me a great deal of pleasure; seeing younger pupils trying on helmets and role playing being part of the crew, giving assemblies or delivering workshops to older students always leaves me feeling very encouraged as the groups are genuinely interested in finding out about EHAAT.

One of my school highlights of last year was an Assembly I did for pupils and parents at a school near Bishops Stortford. Their Year 6s had selected EHAAT as their chosen charity. I was invited back with Charlotte from the fundraising team and Sinead, a critical care paramedic, to start their Colour Run sports day event, which was great fun. I then received an invitation to represent EHAAT at their final speech day with the guest of honour Dame Floella Benjamin. The school raised £4000 and the work of EHAAT was acknowledged in the main speech.

I feel privileged and proud to be one of over 400 volunteers supporting the teams who work out of North Weald and Earls Colne and I’m very lucky to have also made new friends through the different activities I have been involved in.