Vienna Volunteer Trip – Mana Hazlett describes how she took the Miscarriage Association to Europe

The Centre for Lifelong Learning at Strathclyde University, Glasgow, invited people to attend a volunteer workshop in Vienna and consequently, I was able to join a group of people there for a ‘Tell Me about your Commitment’ Conference.

We flew out on Wednesday 18 May and returned on Saturday 21st. It was great fun! When we agreed to join the team, we were asked to give an account of the volunteering we were involved in, so I was keen to get a chance to talk about The Miscarriage Association on a European platform and in this way raise our profile abroad.

Six countries were involved: Scotland, Poland, Slovenia, Germany, Spain and the host, Austria. When we arrived, we hardly had time to dump our bags in our hotel room before dashing off to the first venue. We had a welcome getting to know you session called, ‘Buffet of the Nations’. It was not only lovely to meet everyone in an informal way, but the food was delicious! While we tucked into the buffet, Lynda asked me if I was willing to be on first the next morning, to talk about The MA – I was happy to go first. However, when we got there, the Polish team had already set up and after the interval, others had already been asked to present. So by lunchtime, I still hadn’t been offered a slot!

I had chosen ‘Creative Writing’ and was very glad to find this session very enjoyable. Even better, the Professor who ran it liked my story and asked me to read it at the plenary session! That definitely made up for not getting a chance to speak earlier. Everyone enjoyed my story and several wanted a copy of it! That evening we went to a tavern for a meal where one of the German staff asked me if I was enjoying the trip. I said I was disappointed at not having had a chance to speak. She felt my volunteer interest should have a time to be discussed, as we are a National Association – so on the Friday morning I got a slot after all!

Hilde translated each paragraph for me, which was great as some people didn’t understand English, but this meant that my talk took twice as long to read! I was very grateful to Hilde for being able to translate and it meant that everyone got a time to hear about The MA.  Again, people asked me for a copy of my talk, which I thought was great. While Hilde did her translating, I gave out leaflets. Because everyone had heard me on the Thursday reading my story, it meant that they listened really well on the Friday!!

We are hoping to meet up with people via Skype in the future and some of the staff will be coming to Glasgow in March 2012.The next conference is in Poland in October next year, so watch this space!