What are our wellness coffee mornings?
Here at Seed we work hard to highlight the importance of wellness and wellbeing at work, forging an excellent working environment and encouraging positive mental health among all Seed employees. There are several ways we do this, but one notable way is through our monthly Wellness Coffee Mornings. Since January 2021 we have covered a different topic each month that relates to wellness at work, such as work wellbeing, stress, sleep & hydration and friendship.
I’ll research the topic, put together a presentation (which Emma our designer makes look good!) and then I’ll go through it with the rest of the team during a virtual ‘coffee morning’. The idea behind this is to open up a conversation around the topic or to even just provide an opportunity for everyone to learn something new; whether that be from the presentation, or from having a discussion with someone from the team.
August wellness at Seed
The topic for August was Volunteering and Donating, an appropriate follow-up from our recent beach clean that we did this month to give back to the Brighton Community.
Giving back is something that is important to Seed and is one of the things that attracted me to the company in the first place; we are given two paid volunteering days a year and we can use these to do whatever we want (as long as it involves some kind of voluntary work). We have also participated in charity fundraisers in the past and are often given the opportunity to donate to fundraising pages.
Not only was this an easy one for me to research and put together due to Seed’s passion for volunteering/donating, it was also super interesting. Here are some of the things I found…
Researching volunteering options
There are so many different ways to volunteer that I never even knew existed! For example, ‘micro-volunteering’ is a low-commitment and often one-off way of volunteering that can be done remotely. Zooniverse, an online research platform, allows you to volunteer your time by helping with research and classifying data.
One example of this is the project “Spotting Spider Monkeys” which uses thermal infrared images of the Amazon Rainforest and asks volunteers to count the number of Spider Monkeys in the image, which helps understand how endangered this species may be. This kind of volunteering is perfect for those of us who want to help, but feel like we simply don’t have the time to commit to regular volunteer work.
Researching donating options
Donating blood is also something that I focused on for this months wellness talk. It’s something that most of us can do and it can save lives. After looking into it, I signed myself up to donate and I was hoping that others would do the same upon learning more about it.
For example, according to the Give Blood website, they need around 400 new donors a day to meet demand and around 135,000 new donors a year to replace those who can no longer donate. If someone like me, who is deathly afraid of needles, is able to swallow my fear and take the plunge, I’m hoping that others will do the same!
Encouraging all to volunteer and donate when we can
These are just a few of the examples of volunteering/donating that I spoke about in August’s Wellness Coffee Morning. The reason that this was included in the Wellness talks is because, obviously volunteering/donating is beneficial for those whom it helps, but it also makes the person doing it feel good. If you feel that your actions have a positive impact on others, then it will make you feel good about yourself, promoting good mental health and a positive mind set. Also, volunteering with others like we did during our beach clean is a good way to socialise and get to know those you work with, creating a sense of community and belonging, which ultimately promotes good mental health and wellness at work.
I ended the talk by challenging everyone to sign up to some form of volunteering, whether that be donating blood or counting how many monkeys are in a tree in the Amazon Rainforest. After the tumultuous 18 months we’ve had, everyone can do with feeling good about themselves, and what better way to do this than by showing some kindness towards others.
