Matt Skinner

Matthew has made a significant and varied contribution to improving the lives of people with a hearing loss. He decided to volunteer for our charity, Action on Hearing Loss, after a career break and has exceeded expectations in all the activities undertaken. Matthew is a highly effective and knowledgeable information volunteer who is able to build up an excellent rapport with the public, thereby helping to maximise the impact of our message. He is a dynamic and passionate advocate of our campaign to get people to protect their hearing; this has led him to supporting events in colleges throughout South Wales and being invited to speak about the campaign at a local school. Matthew is also a committed and creative advisor for the Gwirvol project where his role is to create opportunities for young deaf people to run events for themselves and others and to support employment-related taster sessions. He comes up with innovative ideas to maintain the enthusiasm of participants and goes the extra mile, attending Deaf clubs in the area to raise awareness of the scheme. He also helps a deaf gentleman to practise his driving theory test and has taken it upon himself to learn British sign language. Matthew received several nominations in our 2011 volunteer awards scheme and won an award for delivering results. Alison, Matthew's manager, says: It would give me great pleasure to see him publicly acknowledged for his valued contributions to our volunteering efforts in Wales'.