Send Help was launched on April 14th 1997 with the Mayor of Guildford, Councillor John Woodhatch, who opened Send Help at the Lancaster Hall.
The next morning I was on duty when somebody rang to say "Could we bitumen her shed roof!” I politely declined to which she said, "Well I've got everything you need!"
It all began a year beforehand when Vicky Turton, from Surrey Good Neighbour Schemes, called a public meeting. There followed months of calling on other groups to see how it was done and creating individual cards on which details of every client and every volunteer were entered. Eventually the steering group that had formed were asked to take on responsibilities, which included the Chairman role, to run Send Help. Pam Finn, who thought of our name, rang me just before our first meeting and said all the other steering group members thought I'd make a good Chairman. I assured her that I wasn't Chairman material and I'd do anything else, but…
So I became the first Chairman and every AGM there after I asked that if anybody wanted to step into the role chairman, I was very willing to stand down, but nobody did! So for 23 and a half years there I stayed!
Send Help has changed enormously over the last few years. Now everything is on-line and even the phone line is changed remotely. Back in the day we took bags (two of them and very heavy) to the next days Duty Officer. Then every job was entered on the client cards and we would ring individual volunteers to see if they could do it. We'd sometimes make 15 or 16 calls and all details had to be entered on volunteer cards so they could be cross referenced. Going to the hospital meant it was one job as we stayed with clients, no matter how long. We used to take pets to vets and even offer to do odd jobs. Once a volunteer planted 300 plants; the client had ordered them and then got a bad back! We took one client to Wales, we fitted a flatpack kitchen,we've put up shelves, a bird box and taken branches off a tree. We have set up a mole trap and one client rang to say she'd got mice caught in a humane trap. When our volunteer got there, there were mice caught in traps in every kitchen cupboard! We had the fire service checking all our client's homes and fitting smoke alarms - that took several weeks.
We took wheelchair users but of course health and safety weren't as strict in those days!
We reached the first 10,000 jobs in 2015 and went back to number one. We presented the 10,000 client with a bouquet. I guess we'll go back to one when we reach the next 10,000.
It is very rare when we have to turn away a job as we don't have a volunteer. One young man who lived with his mother, asked if we had "an attractive young lady free in the evenings" - we declined that one as I didn't think we were setting up a dating agency!
