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I remember World Book Day quite clearly from school. I don’t, however, have any recollection of it during university, so I don’t expect you know that it occurred recently. This year was definitely my favourite World Book Day to date. I, and some other lucky Grant Thornton employees, spent it volunteering in a school in Camden. I was in a reception class for the day and had forgotten how small the children are when they start school.

I spent most of the morning helping the kids make their own books. This consisted mainly of me drawing animal outlines on request that they would colour in. The most requested outline was a bat, with spiders coming in a close second.

At midday, I rejoined the other GT volunteers and had some lunch with the teaching staff. There was a little bit of job envy on both sides… They get to play with kids all day, we… don’t have to deal with kids. That sort of banter.

In the afternoon, we were visited by a class room entertainer who was incredibly gifted. The kids were beautifully behaved, and joined in on his songs. After that, I got to read a story to the class, and then it was time for the kids to go home. A couple of them were asking if ‘Mr Webster’ was going to be coming back everyday. Very touching.

Everyone at Grant Thornton has the opportunity to spend one day per year as a volunteer as part of GT’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) programme. CSR will be a familiar concept to those who have spent time in a business school or big company. For those who haven’t, it is essentially the mechanism by which businesses give back to their local communities. At GT, it is difficult to go more than a couple of weeks without hearing about all the CSR activities staff are undertaking.

Needless to say, getting the opportunity to do things like this is great. I felt a huge sense of fulfilment and would definitely do it again. If you don’t think a school would be right for you, there are plenty of other activities that GT take part in.

Right, back to business…

Harry