James Holmes a'Court

James started volunteering at Aerobility after taking a break from a career as an IT consultant.

"I was looking for a new challenge after deciding to leave my job as a specialist in large data warehouses with a multi-national corporation. Volunteering at Aerobility seemed a natural fit since I had a life long interest in aviation and I felt that spending my time helping a charity that helped others would give me much better job satisfaction.

I was willing to help with whatever was needed, but in fact I was asked to assist with the modernisation of Aerobility's IT processes, implementing CEO Mike Miller-Smith's vision of making better use of the charity's central CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system.

I have found volunteering to be a tremendously rewarding experience. I have been able to use the skills I already had, as well as learning new ones, and the work tends to relate to the far more interesting aspects of my previous role without the other parts that went with it. I do feel that I am making a difference in improving the efficiency and running of the charity.

There's always so much happening that every day is a varied experience - from one day to the next you can be meeting new people (some of them famous!), testing indoor drones, flying the superb simulator or even dismantling a kitchen. The charity has so many aspects to it that whatever your background you can likely find an area where you can help."