Volunteering as a REMAP Branch Chair – Maggie Bracher

Maggie Bracher outlines her involvement with REMAP over time, and her experience as chairperson of the Southampton and West Hants branch.

Background and Motivation

Having had a father who was an electrical engineer and a great practical person, I spent my childhood making things (mostly in wood) and trying to help him around the house and in the garden. My father was a great problem solver and instilled the passion for remaking things to suit new requirements. Working with the engineers in REMAP constantly reminds me of my father, particularly the tendency to keep everything in case it is needed in the future!

I worked with REMAP engineers in the 1980s, as a newly qualified occupational therapist, and was encouraged to maintain links with REMAP by my senior OT mentor at the time. My clinical experience included running a rehabilitation workshop, where I worked alongside a technical instructor with people who needed rehabilitation to return to manual roles within industry or practical trades. This experience reinforced my love of working with materials and machinery, and of the problem solving and creativity required to enable patients to return to work.

Volunteering With REMAP

In 2000, while teaching at the University of Southampton, I joined the Southampton and West Hants REMAP branch as OT adviser and was fortunate to meet some amazing engineers who were also passionate about education. This gave me the opportunity to bring REMAP into our undergraduate OT programme, and then to include REMAP in a student placement, with help from the central team.

The primary roles of chairperson with REMAP include promoting the charity to other organisations, recruiting volunteers for various roles, organising and chairing branch meetings, liaising between the central REMAP team and branch members, and working closely with the cases officer, secretary, and treasurer to maintain the smooth running of the local branch.

Having volunteered for several years with REMAP, I was privileged to be asked to become chairperson in 2020. I was lucky to have the support of the whole team, including the previous chair, to help me develop my role. This was initially challenging due to Covid and the need to operate remotely for at least a year. It did, however, enable me to develop the ability to manage online meetings and presentations, all of which supported the skills required in my employment at the time.

Impact and Future Focus

Volunteering as chairperson still allowed me to maintain my OT knowledge and skills following my retirement in 2021. I have assisted as a second person on visits to clients with engineers and engaged in creative solution discussions. The visits and branch meetings have enabled me to use my problem solving and analysis skills, particularly in regard to design principles. I have also worked closely with the cases officer to triage and allocate referrals to the appropriate engineers. The collaborative culture within our team means that I have been able to share some aspects of my role as chairperson, allowing me time to explore and introduce new ideas to promote interprofessional working between OTs and engineers.

I have been able to introduce OT and engineering students to our REMAP branch through my work at the University of Southampton and with the help and enthusiasm of the engineering teaching team. We now have student volunteers from OT, engineering, and nursing within the Southampton and West Hants branch. I hope that the student experiences with REMAP will encourage them to make connections in their future professional careers and maybe even begin, or continue, to volunteer with REMAP, wherever they work.

Find out more about the role of Chair/Branch-Co-ordinator and other volunteering opportunities.