In November 2021 we heard the sad news that our friend and colleague Pat Gay had died. Pat was one of the founding members of the Institute for Volunteering Research, to which she remained hugely committed until the end. For many years she travelled from Suffolk to London regularly to come to our team meetings to share her brilliant ideas, and enthusiasm for the subject.
Pat cared deeply about all things volunteering, but had a particular and enduring interest in health and volunteering: both the health benefits of volunteering, and volunteering within health and care settings. This had started during Pat’s time at the King’s Fund and the Oxford Regional Health Authority when she had been involved in a series of projects on volunteer management and the role of volunteers in befriending psychiatric patients. It was an interest extended beyond her work, into various roles within the community as Pat got involved in various voluntary bodies including the drug and alcohol organisation ADFAM National; as non-executive director of her local Primary Care Trust; and with several other organisations concerned with health and health inequalities. Following her appointment as Research Fellow at the Policy Studies Institute, Pat’s interests in volunteering extended into new areas, as she began to study the link between volunteering and unemployment. Volunteering and health, however, remained her passion.
With colleagues at IVR and beyond, Pat published a number of different studies of volunteering. Mostly notably, this included new work on volunteering and the transition to retirement, whilst also continuing to write about volunteering and employability, volunteering and health and volunteer management.
But Pat brought far more than her sharp intellect and deep insights to our team. We will remember her as someone whose thinking was ahead of its time, and who cared deeply about what she studied and all whom she studied with. Pat was an extremely warm and welcoming person who gave so much to the people around her – including passing on her love of running, and freshly baked cakes! She was an inspiration but also definitely had her feet on the ground, a researcher through and through. We are hugely grateful for what Pat added to our research field and to our lives, and will miss her greatly.
Pat’s many publications included:
Angela, Colin, Jo, Jurgen, Justin, Meta, Mike and Nick