Charity director’s last leap

Don’t look down!

A FROME charity boss  stepped down in style this month, after she abseiled down the Avon Gorge as her final grand gesture to the charity where she has worked for 11 years.

Mary Taylor, director of local charity Positive Action on Cancer (PAC), faced her fears and abseiled down the Avon Gorge on Saturday 14th March. Mary made the descent as part of PAC’s bumper fundraising month ‘Mad March’, and used the experience to mark her upcoming retirement in June.

Mary has been the director of PAC for over 10 years and in that time has seen the organisation grow. She said, “On Saturday I faced my fear of heights and abseiled down Avon Gorge, taking care not to look over the edge! With lots of encouragement and the thought that I didn’t want to let PAC down, I managed it. I wanted to raise funds for the cause I believe in – providing counselling for adults and children affected by cancer.

“In June I will be retiring from PAC following 11 years as clinical manager and then director. From the first day, I knew that this job would be very important to me, I didn’t realise how important and how it would shape my life, including leading to me moving from Devizes to Frome!

“In the early days, working with founder Jill Miller, it was exciting to see how the charity developed to meet the needs of more and more people affected by cancer and in 2008 to fulfil our dream of providing counselling for children, knowing as we did, how devastating a diagnosis of cancer in the family can be.

“As a counsellor at PAC, I have listened so many times to stories which have seemed to strain the limits of human endurance and I have experienced, never the less, how the human spirit does endure. It has been humbling to share a small part of the lives of so many clients.

“Being the director of PAC since 2008 has been scary, challenging and nerve wracking but at the end of the day, rewarding to know that we now offer more counselling than ever before; that some of our provision is now funded by the NHS and that I will be leaving a thriving local charity with amazing local support and a reputation for excellence for the service we deliver.

“Every year we have struggled to raise the necessary funds to maintain the service and this year is no exception; this abseil is a great way to raise funds for PAC as well as marking my upcoming retirement.”

If you would like to sponsor Mary you can still do so at www.justgiving.com/Mary-Taylor-pac.