Introducing our new Volunteering Coordinator: James Tibbles
We are delighted to announce we have appointed James Tibbles as OxFizz’s new Volunteering Coordinator. James will join our team from August 2019.
You can read James’s introduction below.
James stood out to us as someone who was an incredibly natural fit with our organisation’s vision, mission and culture - and as someone with the enthusiasm, warmth and experience to coordinate our excellent volunteering community.
We’re really excited for what James is going to bring to OxFizz - continuing to improve our volunteer experience, and working behind the scenes to ensure our events and operations run smoothly.
“A couple of weeks ago I was sitting suited and booted in black tie at my college leaver’s dinner. Less than 24 hours later, I found myself already deep in the world of work at the OxFizz office in London. While I am sad to be leaving my degree behind, I feel very fortunate to be using my passion for education as the company’s new Volunteering Coordinator.
As someone who grew up in the state sector and a first-generation university graduate, I am very excited to be contributing to the company’s social vision for widening access to university. Although I was very lucky to have teachers at school who believed in me and always went the extra mile, I am acutely aware of the challenges facing students from disadvantaged backgrounds. I am looking forward to getting stuck in with both the operations side of the company and the groundwork of running workshops themselves.
One of the most inspiring experiences I have had in this area is as an academic mentor on Oxford’s access summer school UNIQ. It has been encouraging to see numerous access students grow in confidence and succeed in gaining a place at Oxford during my time there - and even better to stop and chat to these newly-matriculated students on the preserves aisle in Tesco a year later! At a time when Oxbridge is always coming under media scrutiny for their failure to improve diversity, success stories like this are more important than ever.
Alongside my degree in English and Russian, I spent a lot of time at university doing student theatre. One of my highlights was co-directing a brand new musical adaptation of Anna Karenina. While doing this project I really found my passion for cultivating community and seeing people progress further in their talents. In addition to making theatre, I love travelling, reading and philosophising over coffee with friends.
I will be starting full-time with OxFizz at the end of August, and cannot wait to get stuck in with a new community of volunteers!
James
james.tibbles@oxfizz.org