Volunteering has helped me gain confidence and learn new skills. It’s also encouraged me to get out of the house and meet new people as I was beginning to feel quite isolated.

I am a graduate and filmmaker. I recently became unemployed and wanted to volunteer as a way to improve my mental well-being as well as supporting Cinema, which is a passion of mine. I saw a post about Screen B14 on facebook and decided to go along to a meeting.

I am the marketing officer for Screen B14 which means that I am in charge of all the none social media aspects of advertising our group and screenings. This means everything from distributing leaflets to contacting local media outlets and publishing our events on other websites and apps. For example, I recently organised an appearance for us on Brum Radio to talk about Screen B14 and the work we do.

I’ve never done anything marketing related before so one of the challenges was learning about the role and trying to find the best ways to promote our screenings to the local community. Also just having the confidence to engage with people and get them excited about our events.

I think volunteering has helped me gain confidence and learn new skills. It’s also encouraged me to get out of the house and meet new people as I was beginning to feel quite isolated. I’ve also learnt a lot about community cinema and organisation which I hope will help me on future projects.

I would encourage anyone thinking of volunteering to come along and give it a go. The time commitment for me has been minimal and very flexible so I am able to fit it around my regular activities. I’ve also gained a lot of new skills and met lots of different people who all love film and their local community.