We interviewed another awesome SG staff member for SG "Meet the Team," where our young people and I ask staff some questions to get to know them better.
This time we chatted to Michelle, one of our Team Administrators, about why she joined SG, her role in the team, and her favourite TV show!
What is your job/ what do you do at SG?
I joined the SG team 18 months ago as an Admin Support. My job is varied, and the role has changed during this time as SG is expanding and developing all the time. A large part of my role involves working alongside the Meetup Co-ordinator, helping with the planning and organising of face-to-face meetups. I also support the team with communication and email campaigns, fundraising, managing calendars, verifying new members, and writing/designing reports, posters and documents.
What is something you enjoy doing at SG?
I love organising, so helping to plan the face-to-face events is probably my favourite part of the job. Planning this year’s big weekend events in London and Manchester was a lot of work, but fun and really absorbing. I’m already thinking about ideas to help make next year’s events even better.
The best part about event organising is hearing how much the young people/families enjoy and value the meetups. I don’t always attend events so love when families share photos and videos, especially when they involve Andy doing something daft like getting covered in beans!
What is your favourite thing you have worked on at SG?
I really enjoy being creative and luckily in this job I have opportunities to explore this when designing posters, reports and booklets. I recently created new templates for all the face-to-face event information and have designed information packs, such as for SG service commissioning and the Learning Community.
One of my first projects was collating feedback from the London 2023 meetups and writing/designing a report to share with families and funders. This is one of the most enjoyable things I worked on as I got to analyse information, be creative and see a project through from start to finish – all things I enjoy.
What is something you have learned from working at SG?
SG runs a lot of webinars/training and I like to attend as many as possible because it’s really valuable to hear members of the team (and our community) speak about different subjects and their lived experiences. Kirstie recently ran a session on ADHD, I especially learned a lot from attending that and it was so different to other training I had attended elsewhere.
What motivated you to start working at SG?
I’ve been following SG since the very beginning. My son is a member of the community and we had attended events, webinars and given input into projects so I already knew it was something special that I would love to be a part of. I follow SG online and, when I saw the perfect job for me come up, I knew I had to apply.
What motivates me to continue working at SG is seeing the difference the work of the charity makes every day to the lives of young people. Although my work is more in the background, I enjoy being part of a strong team who are all really dedicated to the aims of SG, and to working together to promote positive change.
What is your favourite video game or type of video game?
I mainly enjoy puzzle type games such as Tetris and columns, and old school platform games including Sonic the Hedgehog (reminds me of my Sega Mega Drive) and Commander Keen. More recent games I like are relaxing games like Animal Crossing, The Sims and Unpacking.
What’s your favourite TV show?
In general I’m really more of a film fan than a tv series fan. I watch a LOT of films and have done so all my life. My all-time favourite TV show Is Red Dwarf. It’s the only thing I can watch over and over which still makes me laugh every single time even though I know every word!
What’s your opinion on Pineapple on pizza?
Hawaiian pizza is my favourite so I’m definitely a fan. Amongst the SG staff team pineapple seems to be a hotly debated topic and in my opinion is an underrated fruit. It’s great with lots of things hot or cold, although recently at a street food place they put pineapple on my chips along with peppers, onions and cheese sauce and that was a step too far for me!
Do you collect anything - if so, what?
I love collecting things! As a kid I collected everything: postcards, stamps, stickers, keyrings, memorabilia. These days, to avoid a house full of stuff, I just have one collection: a certain design of vintage pottery. I also collect Pokémon on Pokémon Go, but luckily these don’t take up any physical space in my life.
