Meet the Volunteers

 

Beryl Whyatt

Finance Officer

Beryl joined Phoenix as a volunteer in 2013. Previously she had worked for the BBC as Assistant to the Executive Editor of BBC London. She took early retirement from there to administer a national dance charity and for the past 12 years has been Finance Officer at Phoenix.

 

   

Yana Zayed

Activities Support Volunteer

Yana has spent many years working with self-advocates from across the globe on disability equality and non-discrimination. After returning to the UK in 2020, with a meagre handful of random signs from different countries, she finally embarked on her goal of learning BSL and is currently navigating her way through Level 3. She volunteers with the Phoenix Group whenever she can spare the time, in support and admiration of the valuable work it does.

 

Linda Brine

Activities Support Volunteer

 

Linda is deaf and a BSL user.  She qualified as a teacher of BSL and has taught for over 30 years.  She has a PGCE and BSL Linguistics.  She was a member on the committee at a deaf club and became chairperson for many years. Linda was also a Governor at a Deaf school and set up a Deaf Café.

 

 

Lee Spender

Volunteer

 

Lee joined the Phoenix Group in 2024 and volunteers as a driver to transport some of the young adults to and from activities.  Lee has lived with partial hearing loss all his life and is looking to develop his BSL skills. He has had his own marketing and printing business and is able to offer support with our marketing when needed.

 

 

Rebecca Wisdom

Activities Support Volunteer

Rebecca is hard of hearing and supports Phoenix in a volunteering capacity at some of our children and youth activities.

 

 

Georgia Rowe

Activities Support Volunteer

Georgia is hard of hearing and supports Phoenix in a volunteering capacity at some of our children and youth activities.

 

 

 

 

Gill Dowling 

Fundraising Volunteer

Gill has 21 years’ experience working in the catering industry and more recently with Extended Schools. She then spent 7 years

working for a Charity providing playschemes for children with special needs. Since retiring she has continued supporting them

at fundraising events.  Her passions include healthy eating, baking and cake decorating. She also volunteers at a church café

and looks forward to working with Phoenix, supporting the deaf community.    

 

 

Vidhu Patel

Activities Support Volunteer

Vidhu is Deaf and uses BSL. Vidhu supports Phoenix in a volunteering capacity at some of our children and youth activities.