Volunteer spotlight: Stephen Morris

Volunteer spotlight: Stephen Morris

05 June 2017

Stephen has a long, colourful history with the Trust, first volunteering shortly after the opening of Charing Cross Hospital in 1973. When he retired in 2002, he came back to the hospital and spent 7 years volunteering with the hospital’s radio station. It was through this that he met the charity’s arts team and since 2012 he’s been a treasured volunteer.

 Since joining us, Stephen has taken on the mammoth job of cataloguing every piece of art across all five Trust hospitals. For this, he uses Collectrium, a piece of software owned by the auction house Christie's and used by notable collectors to manage their art collections.

  “It’s not a trivial task,” said Stephen. “There are more than 2,000 artworks and there are four sites and multiple buildings on every site with multiple floors, so knowing where things are all the time is not easy. It is worthwhile and having that information is a basic requirement for the art collection to become a museum.”

 “I think the art collection does affect patients and people have repeatedly said ‘it’s fantastic, it really improves their working environment in very stressful locations, like intensive care units.”

 A 2014 survey carried out by the charity revealed that 69% of patients credited the art collection with making them feel more relaxed in the hospital environment.

 Stephen’s significant and varied experience have made him a huge asset to the team: “I have some professional qualifications that enable me to understand some of these things. I have a degree in history and history of art, I have a PHD in computing and the last full time job I had was as the head of the department of computing at City University. Before that I worked as a town planner for a long time in local governments, so I understand about institutions which is always useful.”

 “Volunteering is about supporting an organisation you think is valuable and whenever friends have asked what they should do I say ‘well…volunteer!’ The people are great and they’re very motivated and it’s a very valuable thing to do.”

 Volunteers like Stephen play a vital role across the Trust. If you’d like to get involved or find out more about volunteering, visit our volunteering page.