ELBA’s Volunteer of the Month for September is Briohny Williams of Moody’s. Briohny was selected as the winner for delivering an excellent presentation skills workshop for ELBA staff.

The judging panel felt that Briohny went “above and beyond” by taking the time to understand the specific needs of the attendees and tailoring the session accordingly. The three and a half hour workshop included both theoretical and practical elements. Each participant had the opportunity to present to the group and receive personalised feedback. The ELBA staff learnt a great deal from the session and have since enjoyed putting their learning into practice.

 Briohny’s volunteering is a great example of drawing on professional expertise to enhance the skills of staff members at third sector organisations, creating a wider community benefit.

1) Why did you volunteer? 

When my team participated in Moody’s Team Up™*, our signature volunteer season, over the summer, we did an Employment Skills Workshop with ELBA and Skills For Growth. It was aimed at helping young people build their CV and job interview skills. I really enjoyed working with the participants. I also thought Jonathan’s (ELBA Project Manager) moderation of the session was very good, so I gave him this feedback at the end of the day. I mentioned my background in facilitating communication skills classes and we discovered there was an opportunity to work further together with the other volunteer co-ordinators. I had such a positive experience volunteering the first time, I was very happy to be involved, and we agreed I would deliver a Presentation Skills workshop to the ELBA team.

2)What did you gain from your volunteering experience?     

I’ve worked in training at Moody’s since 2009, and the great part of this experience was working with a group of talented individuals so different from the analysts that are part of my day to day work. Given the different types of presentations the volunteer co-ordinators are involved in, we had very interesting conversations about how to build presenter confidence, engage different audiences (school children, other volunteers, and in a corporate environment), manage the flow of presentations, and handling difficult interactions.

3)Would you recommend volunteering to a colleague and if so then why?    

Yes, definitely! The interesting thing about this experience is realising the capabilities we use in our day to day work can be truly useful to others, however it was also a very valuable experience for me to work with the team. By spending half a day with the ELBA volunteer co-ordinators I was able expand my perspective about the work ELBA does, alter my own approach to presenting to a new group, and hopefully share my experience and a few new skills with the team at the same time. It’s great Moody’s recognises that we as employees can learn new skills and extend ourselves through volunteering with others.

*Moody’s TeamUp™ is registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office