The best years of my life
I started the textbook way with market surveys and business plans but soon wasted my redundancy money and achieved nothing. I learned two lessons:-
Thankfully I got some computer consultancy with the company who took over my former employer and for a time I earned twice as much as they had paid me as Financial Director ! At the same time I found myself moving into the voluntary sector. I worked as a church administrator for the church I had been attending for 10 years and when my consultancy ended was paid a small salary. I picked up some skills in publicity and desk top publishing and got used to doing much more office work for myself.
Kazakstan
One of the church projects was to build links with Kazakstan and we took a small group of church leaders and business people there in 1992. This was the beginning of the most interesting period in my life. The country needed contacts with the West and there were few interested in providing them. The church group provided links in education, aid and for the churches in the two countries. The business group tried to link up honest traders in the two countries for the benefit of Kazakstan.
The Director of Education of a Region in Kazakstan asked for help to found a school for deaf and blind children. From this beginning an assessment was made and 4 charities joined together to work with 3 schools for deaf children in Shymkent. An audiologist and a teacher of the deaf made 3 trips to assess, train, measure and fit 42 hearing aids to children.
Deafax work
Through involvement in this work I was offered the job of Financial Director with one of these charities, Deafax Trust, for 1 day per week. I became interested in the work of the trust and gave far more time than I was paid for. The trust provides an introduction for deaf children and unemployed older people to the means of communication like fax and the textphones. I took part in the expansion of this training into word processing, spreadsheet, database, e-mail and the internet. Of course I learned as I went along but it was fun to learn new skills and share them with my deaf colleagues. We use 2 computers for these sessions, one to type to each other and the other to do the training on the Internet.
I was also involved in fundraising and other work and the trust grew and now employs me 3 days per week in quite a variety of tasks.
Our attempts to form commercial links in Kazakstan have met with many set backs but one project which has been successful has been to send a bakery to produce English bread commercially and to feed the poor. We have gained invaluable experience of local trading conditions and joint ventures and have made some good friends and partners. I have just returned from working with the bakers and am developing some aid projects and am working on a proposed holiday village now.
Job satisfaction
After spending half a lifetime providing for my family it is great to be able to do something that is of use to people in need. It really is more fun to give than to receive, like the Bible says, and when you give time you seem to get back friends, satisfaction and enough money to live on. If you would like more details please phone Malcolm Crocker on 01491 412525 in the evening and chat or e-mail me.