Well I was up last night thinking that I should start my own volunteering company. Inspired by the people at We've Got Time To Help, I wanted to set up a site where people with free time could lend time and energy to ongoing projects. Before I lost the run of myself I did a bit of research...Not surprisingly, such things do exist, in the form of Volunteering Ireland and Volunteer.ie. I think, these sites are great but we really need a forum so people can share their thoughts and offer help. The first thing I see on the volunteer.ie website is a big banner that says "Check out our new forum ...and share the views, interests and questions from like minded people", then the banner changes and I find out for the first time that National Volunteer Day is on the 1st of October! Well that's a bit of a coincidence! Why had I never heard of this before? Was there any media exposure? How can I get involved? So I went through the site, found a google document with all the events on today and found myself painting and moving bails of hay all day today at a local farm. It sounds strange, I live in the city, but there is actually a farm near us, and its a great place to bring the whole family.

So these things are available and it was very easy for me to get involved and lend a hand for a day. But why had I not been aware of this before? What has happened to the community spirit in this city? I'm very disappointed with the effort made by the media, I think there was some mention of it this morning on the radio, but that's a bit late for most people who may have wanted to get involved. Well, we had a fun day today, luckily we were blessed with the weather and now that I'm more aware of the volunteer work that goes on in the country, I'll be more inclined to offer as much time as I can to it from now on. Ok, I'm tired from a day's labour and it's a Friday, so I think a trip to the local public house would be the best option for me right now...