Volunteer conference 2026
Volunteer Sarah shares her reflections from this year's volunteer conference, and our 70th anniversary reception event
My cousin, who suggested a couple of years ago that I volunteer for New Bridge, persuaded me to go to the Volunteer Conference this year. I am not what you would call a conference person far preferring to be outside, but I thoroughly enjoyed the day and found the speakers inspirational and informative. So off I set from North Yorkshire and entered a room where I knew nobody bar the New Bridge team and one lady who I had met the Sunday before when we had both been visiting HMP Warren Hill. It is always rather daunting, but everyone was so friendly and it was great to meet so many other volunteers who all had wonderful stories to tell.
Lucy opened the Conference and we were shown a film depicting the artwork that prisoners had submitted for the 70th Anniversary Exhibition ‘What New Bridge Means To Me’. The opening speaker was Professor Lynn Saunders the former Governor of HMP Whatton and I found her talk fascinating with regard to her work with sex offenders. We then moved on to Paul Reeve who is head of the Norfolk Probation Delivery Unit and he talked about the difficulties for prisoners once they leave prison.
The morning session finished with Chris, David and Paul, all former prisoners who had benefitted from a New Bridge befriender. They did a question and answers forum, were amusing and informative saying how they had loved receiving letters and visits which had transported them for the 2 hours outside prison life. Chris and Paul had shared some of their prison journey together, but hadn’t been in touch since and were happily surprised to be reacquainted.
During lunch I chatted to Paul who spoke movingly how his befriender had navigated him across London upon his release from Hull on his journey to Bristol.
After lunch we had the awards ceremony when awards were given to volunteers who had befriended people in prison for 30, 25, 20 and 10 years. I sat there thinking, wow, what a commitment to have completed 30 years of befriending. I am sure there will have been wonderful days when you receive happy letters from befriendees and also heartbreaking days when things haven’t gone so well for them. Even in the two years that I have been doing it I find you can be taken through every emotion.
Ben Leapman, editor of Inside Time, was up next and I found this talk perhaps the most exciting which I didn’t expect to. There were copies of the September edition of Inside Time for us to take and I read mine on the way home on the train. I found it a really good read and full of different topics along with fitness advice, poems, art and puzzles. I often read the headline articles on the New Bridge website but have never delved into the newspaper itself before. During his talk Ben said that 6 of their team of 12 were ex-prisoners. I wasn’t expecting that.
The final talk was by Lucy Gampell of the Parole Board. It’s quite a heavy subject but I learnt a lot of things that I felt I could pass on to my befriendees which I did do as I have one whose Parole hearing is imminent.
We then moved downstairs to celebrate New Bridge’s 70th Anniversary where the Reverend Jonathan Aitken and Professor Nick Hardwick spoke. Jonathan Aitken talked about how Lord Longford had started New Bridge and also how he had visited him whilst he was in prison. He also said how much prisoners enjoy visits. Nick Hardwick spoke very movingly and his final story was about a boy who was throwing stranded fish on the beach back into the sea. A man came along and said to the boy “that’s not making any difference”. The boy bent down, picked up another fish, threw it back into the sea, turned to the man and said “I made a difference to that one”. It left us all with a lump in our throats and a tear in our eye as we finished a memorable day.
If Sarah has inspired you to consider joining our volunteer community then you can find more about the role, and apply online, here: https://www.newbridgefoundation.org.uk/volunteer
You can join our mailing list to be kept up to date with the latest news here: https://www.newbridgefoundation.org.uk/forms/mailing-list
You can make a donation to help us continue supporting isolated people in prison here: https://www.justgiving.com/charity/newbridgefoundation