Stories from the Edge - Volunteer Now

“ Play is also learning ”Austin Coll and Joyce LardieJoyce Lardy and Austin Coll are employees of Northern Bank. Joyce is manager in the Larne Branch andAustin works in Belfasts’ Victoria Street. Joyce and Austin also have something else in common. Theyhave both volunteered to take part in the Northern Bank Time 2 Count programme. The programme,developed in partnership with Belfast Education and Library Board and Business in the Community hasbeen running for over a year at the time of writing, and has already won a prestigious award for outstanding communityinvolvement. Time 2 Count is designed to help youngsters in primary schools with numeracy skills.What makes Time 2 Countdifferent is that it manages to incorporate play into the weekly numeracy session. It is only during the last part of the 20thcentury that social scientists realised that play is an important part of growing up. Until then play was pigeon holed as somesort of aberration from the main business of education.It is now realised that play is also education by other means. Linking numeracy with play ensured that the Time 2 Countprogramme was a worthy winner of the Belfast Telegraph Business Award for Outstanding Community Involvement. It alsogives the Northern Bank’s volunteers the chance to work with eight year olds, and for a while, pass on some of their numeracyskill by playing the numbers game. The twenty strong group of Northern Bank volunteers are drawn from branches anddepartments in the city. The Northern Bank and its sister operation National Irish Bank in the Irish Republic have forgedpartnerships with national organisations.The Northern Bank has linked up with the Volunteer Development Agency to promote volunteering in the community. TheTime 2 Count programme was developed in response to Math’s Year 2000. The programme is just one of the first of severalschemes to support and endorse volunteering in the North. It is hoped that it will help contribute directly to improvingnumeracy levels. In the past the Northern Bank has long been a supporter of the local community through a range ofsponsorships. The Time 2 Count programme has already had £6,000 committed to the development of the initial pilotscheme. A further commitment of a cool £25,000 per annum is planned for the next three years. So far allowing staff to takepart in the programme has now reached and passed 1000 hours during the first academic year ending in June 2000.