Fife CHAS volunteer wins UK hospice award

An inspirational IT expert at Rachel House has been crowned Volunteer of the Year 2018 at the Hospice UK Awards.
Fifer Douglas Cameron received the honour recently.Fifer Douglas Cameron received the honour recently.
Fifer Douglas Cameron received the honour recently.

Fifer Douglas Cameron received the honour at a ceremony held in the Telford International Centre, Shropshire, on Tuesday evening.

Douglas, an IT and activities volunteer with Children’s Hospices Across Scotland (CHAS), has been instrumental in transforming volunteer communications, enabling the charity to reach, engage and retain more volunteers.

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He was also recognised for developing a user-friendly chat bot to answer questions from volunteers. This generated significant levels of interest from other charities across the UK.

Douglas, who originally hails from St Andrews, said: “I am a very proud advocate of CHAS and it is very humbling to represent all the good that so many people do... winning the award is a very unexpected recognition.”

“I’ve had a working knowledge of CHAS from when I managed a social work team, and since then the CHAS collection box has been my go-to for donations.

“My initial experience was, and mainly still is, Sunday mornings at Rachel House fixing the technology and getting involved in activities. It’s actually the most fun and relaxing thing I do in a week, it’s generally a joy.”

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And he urged Press readers to consider joining the ranks of volunteers with CHAS.

“You might be surprised at how little you have to move out of your comfort zone to make a difference and get a lot back.” he said.