Whanganui volunteer Frances Haddock has just never stopped working

Frances Haddock is Volunteer of the Month. Photo / Paul Brooks

Frances Haddock was a teacher — three decades in Rotorua then a spell in Whanganui at Cullinane College. Now, when most people are well into retirement, Frances spends almost every day volunteering.

When she retired in 2007, she started volunteering straight away. She worked at Nazareth rest home until it closed.
"I started off doing stories and poems."
Many of the residents were nuns and Frances remembered them as "fearsome teachers" from her days as a student at Sacred Heart College.

Janet Lewis of Age Concern nominated her for Volunteer of the Month and she had this to say: "I met Frances 17 September, 2015 when she joined the Churton School Steady As You Go group. After 10 weeks of learning the ropes Frances stepped forward with Colleen and offered to be the peer leader.

"Frances also offered to help with other Steady as You go Groups and now also leads the Glasgow group. Her sense of humour, kindness and smile are infectious — always cheery — she just makes other people happy.

"January the following year, Frances put her hand up again to help with Meals on Wheels and our supermarket/transport service. Frances spreads herself around helping with the Library Home service and archives for the city council. I know that she helps taking friends to medical appointments and shopping. I also know that she enjoys quiz night at Club Metro. I am so pleased that I met Frances."

Frances received a certificate, a volunteer badge and a $40 voucher from Mud Ducks Cafe.

She's involved with the Genealogical Society too. "There's an ongoing project on school records... it's with us forever because getting volunteers to do that is tricky," she says.

"The other project I'm doing at the moment, part of a very small team, working for Simon Bloor at the archives, digitising rates records."

She says she gets asked to help with things because she has free time ... but she doesn't really: it's all spent volunteering.

"On Monday morning I've got the exercise class at Glasgow [St] and I volunteer in the library in the afternoon; Tuesday morning and alternate Wednesday afternoons I used to be at the council doing the archives [now done from home]; Thursday morning is the other exercise group and Friday was when I did anything else. The first Friday of the month I do Meals on Wheels as a driver/deliverer — I'm a team of one, and I'm a relief driver there as well."

During level 4 lockdown, Frances says she's never had such a long holiday "in all my born days!"

Most of her work is under the radar. "I'm not a front-of-house person, I'm more out the back doing the little things. I'll keep volunteering as long as I can. That's the way I was brought up: if you can help someone, if you can do something, you do it. Why not? It's not taking anything except my time."