Volunteers Week
Volunteers' Week Exhibition - June 2026
The photographs featured highlight volunteers from Pontypridd Town Council, the Museum, and members of the wider community who have contributed their time, energy, and skills to support the town in a variety of ways.
Volunteering plays an essential role in preserving our heritage, supporting local initiatives, and strengthening community life. These images are a small way of recognising and thanking those individuals whose efforts often take place behind the scenes but have a lasting and visible impact across Pontypridd.
We hope this exhibition serves as a reminder of the value of community involvement and the difference that collective effort can make.
The Pontypridd Town Council and Museum would like to extend our sincere thanks not only to our dedicated volunteers and 23 town councillors, but also to all the individuals who generously give their time, energy, skills, and resources to support Pontypridd.
Your contribution plays a vital role in preserving our local heritage, supporting our community, and helping the wider town to thrive. Whether you volunteer regularly or offer support behind the scenes, your commitment makes a meaningful and lasting difference.
During Volunteer Week, we want to recognise and celebrate the invaluable impact of your efforts. We are truly grateful for everything you do, and we are proud to work alongside such a passionate and supportive community.
Thank you for being such an important part of Pontypridd.
Pauline Monks - Sight Life
Sight Life is a charity that offers support to those with sight loss. They meet biweekly in Pontypridd Museum Community Rooms. Pauline has volunteered with Sight Life since 2013. She started coming with her husband, who has sight loss, and she told us, ‘Since I was the only one who could see to make the tea, I just started to do it!’ Other members say that Pauline is the reason that Sight Life has been so successful and long lasting in Pontypridd. ‘She’s the only reason it’s kept going for so long. She’s the glue.’ Pauline prefers to think of it another way – ‘I’m the bad penny that keeps turning up!’ Thank you, Pauline, for your years of dedication and service.
Terry Blackman - Cub Leader 1st Cilfynydd / 12th Pontypridd Group
Terry has been a volunteer for 65 years. He joined the Scouting movement in 1956 as a Cub. He has led groups in Cilfynydd, The Graig, Treforest and Ynysybwl. He has taken children camping, caving, wild river swimming, hiking and cross country running. For many years he would take young people away for two weeks’ camping in Carmarthenshire to a farm to help the farmer with the hay making.
Keith Jones - Volunteer Trustee at the Hetty Winding House
I am a volunteer trustee of the Hetty, which is in Hopkinstown and is the only remaining part of the former Great Western Colliery site. It's a grade one listed site. It's also a scheduled monument, and it's one of the few reminders of our once dominant coal industry. The site has got implications, of course, with it being built in 1875, it's getting on a bit - like a lot of us up there!
I worked in the coal industry as an apprentice electrician and I’m a chartered engineer with health and safety qualifications, so I have lots of experience and skills to offer. That's why I volunteer for the Hetty and became a trustee.
We want to turn Hetty into a visitor's attraction, which is incredibly difficult, and we’ve had to start from scratch. Of course, we must comply with health and safety procedures and policies to make the site safe for people to go there, and also to promote it and develop educational resources.
It's totally reliant on volunteers, the trustees are volunteers and the volunteers that work on the engine and the rest of the site are all volunteers as well. We're always keen to attract more volunteersand would welcome anyone who may be interested to get in touch.
I think it's so important that we retain part of our industrial heritage, but also our social heritage. Without the coal mining industry, there would be no communities around this area. It's important, especially now they've all gone, that we recognise our past. If we don't know our past, how can we determine our future?
This is a Victorian winding engine in its original setting, the oldest in Britain, still on its oiginal site, and it works... I’m so proud of that.
