James graduated in the summer of 1998 with a BA (Hons) in Sport and Leisure studies at Warwick University (UK), at the time working with disabled children on summer play schemes for a local charity.
In early 1999 he took up the post of Volunteer Co-coordinator with a Council of Disabled People, managing the day to day running of a county-wide volunteer deploying project that enabled disabled people to live independently in the community. After three and a half years he took up a role as Development Officer with Rugby Volunteer Centre where he spent two and a half years providing infrastructure support to front line volunteer involving organisations and developing new volunteer involving projects for the centre.
In his last year at the volunteer centre James took up the chair’s post of Volunteering West Midlands and in May 2005 he took the post of West Midlands Regional Development Officer with Volunteering England (http://www.volunteering.org.uk/aboutus/regionalvolunteeringdevelopmentteam/). He also took on the additional responsibility of being the national sport volunteering link for the regional development officer team.
In December 2005 James was offered a six-month, full time secondment to the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) to develop and co-write the Volunteering Strategy for the 2012 London Games (http://www.london2012.org/en/gettinginvolved/volunteering/).
