Profile
Professional History
The Terrence Higgins Trust - 1983 - 1988
Just two weeks after The Chalice leaflet was launched THT had its 1996 annual Conference. This conference was both a highlight and a very painful experience for me.
On the one hand I helped manage a very successful event with five national newspaper reporters in attendance and brought together a huge number of people working in HIV and Aids. I was also presented with a certificate that congratulated me on the work I had done with the Trust.
However, it was also the event that caused me to re-think my involvement with the Trust. Managing volunteers and managing oneself is not always easy and an event that involved my partner was so badly handled over this weekend that I decided that I needed to move on.
I can still believe that those involved in the incident still have no idea just how much hurt and pain they caused. Interestingly, a major career move I made over a decade later was also the result of events outside of my control. In both cases I could have stayed where I was and in both cases I knew that I had to move on to other challenges in order to make sure that I developed.
As I look back at these events I am struck by how many people in the voluntary sector have had similar experiences. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that as a volunteer the commitment to an issue arises from a personal conviction rather than a desire simply to make a living. It is this commitment that on the one hand generates the energy that drives the sector but on the other hand can make one deny the needs of others or the effect one actions have on others.
After I left the Terrence Higgins Trust I was contacted by people who described how they felt chewed-up and spat-out by the Trust and who were glad to have left. That people had been treated in this manner whilst I was there, and I hadn't noticed, taught me to look beyond my own concerns and has led me in recent times to think about life in a more "systems" frame of mind. By this I mean looking at the wider effect that I and my work have on the people and things around me.
However, many years on from that Conference and other major life changes and challenges my partner and I are still together.
Do contact me if you have any more information about these times.
You can find more details about the THT at this other site.
