Volunteer Spotlight - Lynne

Meet Lynne!

Lynne is Charlie House’s very own angel, lighting up the room wherever she goes with her all-singing, all-dancing personality. If we could perch her on top of a Christmas tree, ready to greet the community of Aberdeen and tell them all about Charlie House – we would! Instead, you might find Lynne taking on the important role of meeting and greeting customers at our social enterprise café ReCHarge Café or donning an elf costume at Santa’s Workshop.

After retiring from her role as Head Receptionist at Stena Drilling in 2019, Lynne found that she missed being out and about meeting new and friendly faces. Ready to use her people skills in a new environment, she sought out volunteering opportunities and remembered that she had friends at Charlie House, a charity with an important cause. From there she began volunteering at the café and soon took on the role of Christmas Elf.

Speaking of her reason for volunteering, she said, “What I look forward to the most about volunteering is meeting people! All the jobs I’ve had in my life have been front of house helping people – it’s something I’ve always enjoyed doing. I enjoy giving back to the community.”

At Charlie House we always try to utilise our volunteers’ skillsets as best as we can to ensure they have an amazing experience with us. The bustling environment of ReCHarge Café is perfect for Lynne, with lots of customers coming in each day for a tasty treat and fantastic selection of drinks. She greets them with glee, serves up a storm of coffee, cakes and more, and is always keen to make friendly conversation.

While her role as host at the café gets her chatting with lots of people, Lynne also particularly enjoys the fun and excitement of being a volunteer elf at Santa’s Workshop at Christmas time, “Seeing the faces of the children is reward enough for what you’re doing, it’s uplifting,” she explains, “You could be feeling down but seeing how excited the children are to see Santa as they wander into the snowy setting of his workshop is just really enjoyable. Last year was excellent, I was front of house dancing with Donner and Blitzen most of the time!”

Volunteering is a huge part of the running of Charlie House, especially at Christmas where we host a huge range of activities and events alongside our ongoing initiatives. Lynne is one of many fantastic people that dedicate their time to supporting Charlie House and families in the local community. We would like to say a huge thank you on behalf of the Charlie House team to Lynne and all our volunteers for their ongoing support throughout 2021.

Lynne’s words of advice for anyone considering volunteering with Charlie House, “Just do it!”

If you’re interested in joining Charlie House as a volunteer, please get in touch by filling out our online form.