AFTER one final, last-ditch attempt to recruit a volunteer to help me restart the Kempshott Rainbow pack, I was overjoyed to finally receive a couple of emails expressing an interest.

The relief I felt was incredible; it’s been really dispiriting putting notices everywhere and not getting a single reply or offer of help for weeks on end.

I am so glad that two women have, even if there’s no further progress past this point, taken that initial step to get in touch with me. It can be so hard in these days when we all love to retreat behind a closed door to reach out and extend a metaphorical hand, to bravely put yourself out there into the unknown.

I hate change myself, and I know how hard it is to have to embrace the new, so I can completely understand someone’s reluctance to get involved. 

No one likes that first day at a new job or fish-out-of-water sensation, or enjoys the anxiety that comes as a result of having to engage with new people. No man is an island, or wants to feel like one.

And it is for the latter reason that we must continue to do our utmost to, as Kipling so memorably expressed it, to “turn the unforgiving minute into sixty seconds’ worth of distance run.”

On countless occasions, I have cajoled my parents, my other half and myself to leave the house when we’ve been tempted by a night reclining on a soft sofa rather than head out the door to whatever someone has invited us to.

We owe it to ourselves to make full use of our lives, to get out there and get involved, to never turn down opportunities which might prove fruitful and which might enhance our lives no end.

Look how long it took for me to have a proper conversation with anyone in my Pilates class – and now these chats are one of the highlights of my week.

Members of local bands, groups, choirs and societies will be able to pay testament to how much they gain from their shared experience, and from the community that comes from collective music-making, creating, performing or community service. 

Thinking about it, some of my friends are utterly fearless. They say yes to everything and never seem daunted by getting out there and getting stuck in.    

Of course, no one should be beavering around to the extent where they don’t know which end of them is up, but it does seem that busy people can always find time to do more things because they are used to mining every moment for its worth.

I am determined to start doing the same.