This week I had the pleasure of speaking to Bruce Lee (no, not that Bruce Lee!) about his experiences of volunteering with Remap. You can find out more about the charity here, but in short, Remap is a UK-wide organisation which creates and adapts products to assist with independent living. 

Bruce, originally having trained as an engineer, has been volunteering with Remap for an astonishing 20 years! At the age of 81, he tells me that he has a new found appreciation for Remap having had a few falls himself and needing some mobility equipment of his own. In his own words: “I’m a champion faller, not a champion lander!” His local Bristol panel has around 25 active volunteers which help around 100 people a year.

Bruce explains that it’s often occupational therapists, health care workers, teachers or carers who initiate contact with Remap to ask for assistance on behalf of someone they know or work with. However, individuals are also more than welcome to highlight any problems they are experiencing themselves. Bruce’s committee meets once a month to present the jobs to the team of volunteers.

Like all Remap panels, Bruce has been involved with numerous projects which reflect a variety of needs and mobility issues. He stresses that each and every product Remap makes or adapts has to be specifically tailored to the needs and abilities of its users. For example, one problem, facing a cyclist with dwarfism, was that she found many bicycles unaccommodating to her petite frame. In particular, the brakes, situated on the handle bars of the bike, proved difficult to reach. In this case Remap volunteers were able to reconfigure the bike so an enlarged back rest could be leant upon in order to slow the bike down.

Another problem Remap was asked to solve came from the wife of man living with Parkinson’s disease. As her husband had to take daily medication at 12am, 5am and 6am she was required to wake up and provide him with his medication. Remap engineers managed to design a dispenser which provided the man with his medication in a way that he could administer the drugs himself, while allowing his wife a restful night’s sleep.

Remap designs and modifies products which often wouldn’t be commercially viable for larger firms to produce. Product standardisation and mass production manufacturing means that customised products are hard to find, or expensive to purchase. Remap’s services however, are completely free to use. The volunteers use all their own equipment and only receive a small stipend to cover their travel expenses. If the job requires, Bruce tells me that he will undertake fundraising duties in order to be able purchase new products or material to be able to create or modify a product. As he tells me: “I wouldn’t be doing this if I didn’t enjoy it, you get so much out of it”.

At the end of our discussion Bruce jokes: “now remember what Remap stands for, Really Elderly Men and Play!” If you have an issue that you think Remap can help you with, you can find your local panel here. As for Bruce, given his enthusiasm, he sounds like he’ll be ‘playing’ for many more years to come!