Volunteering - where to start?

[TattieBogle12]

This, really. I’m quite keen to do some volunteer work and don’t really know where to begin with finding something suitable.

I’m a little socially awkward and I lack confidence etc, not very outgoing but I’m well organised, enjoy admin and organising etc. my strengths are in office work. Which is sort of depressing but we are where we are…

i fancied doing some of the admin/“behind the scenes” stuff with the girl guides. i have three girls who are all in brownies and thought it would be cool to give something back. But the admin stuff on the girl guiding website all seem to be massive roles and i work full time so realistically I can’t really take on anything enormous. I need something I can do in evenings/weekends I guess.

any thoughts/experiences would be appreciated.

Have a look on your local authority's web site. Ours has a massive list of volunteering opportunities for the whole county.

As a Brownie leader, we would be grateful for any time you could offer helping! Please don’t be put off by the website - if you register your interest someone local will get back to you and chat through what your comfort zone is and will find a unit who’ll snap your hand off! Are any of your girls still in Brownies? Could you chat to their leader to see if there’s anything you could help with? There are lots of behind the scenes bits I know I could happily share out if someone offered

Think about your skills and interests, and also how much time you are able to commit on a regular basis.

Some volunteer roles require intensive training and/or "antisocial" hours.
Be ready to have to go through some sort of selection or recruitment process, and possibly have a DBS check.
Take it as seriously as applying for a job, the one difference obviously being the lack of salary.
Most towns have a Volunteer Centee, or similar, or try the Council for Voluntary Service. You will find volunteer opportunities online, but you usually get a better "fit" if you speak to someone with some knowledge and expertise.

I walked into Oxfam and asked how I could help.

I volunteer in a few places weekly:

eBay volunteer - alongside the permanent staff I assess and research donated goods, photograph them and load them into eBay. I go into the charity’s office but they have volunteers who do this from home too. You can do as many hours as suits and many charities raise money this way now

Social supermarket- I help receive the food delivery from FareShare and then we make up food parcels according to the weekly list that we receive from the manager. People then collect the parcels and we also do them for Too Good To Go customers and the homeless

Warm Places scheme - serve food and hot drinks to people in a local church, but venues are in all sorts of places

Beavers - I’m an official parent helper at my DS’ group. Needs a DBS.

Our local council has a volunteer database and their is the website Do-It too; also look at the jobs and volunteer opportunities listed on charity websites that interest you. Indeed website also has voluntary roles listed sometimes.

I've got 3-4 roles.

1. I help out at occasional run/cycle races. This can be heavy for paperwork, actually. Parkrun is way to do that weekly.
2. School PTA
3. Cinnamon Trust, dog-walking for 2 people on 3 mornings week, owners have poor health
4. helping to moderate on a Facebook page (for charity)

years ago I was lined up to do admin for Scouts; then DS dropped out. ATC groups also need administrators, as do preschools & parish councils (paid roles, even).

Get on your local Facebook pages & just ask what's needed locally.

@TattieBogle12 please for your own sake don't touch Girlguiding with a barge pole. They literally do not care about keeping members safe, but you won't realise this until you're in too deep, and then parents can potentially hold you responsible when it all goes tits up. I'm not talking about the trans issue, which I actually think is a very difficult one to balance.

There are loads of organisations who would really value your skills. Actually admin / behind the scenes stuff is often what organisations struggle with. Where abouts in the country are you, and what causes do you really care about? If you could fix one thing in our society, what would it be?

If you're keen to do admin/ behind the scenes work definitely get in touch with the brownie leaders! They should be able to point you in the direction of how to officially volunteer, and if you've got a couple of specific skills that won't take long, you may also be able to help out other units in the area too! Even if you can't commit to every week, you may still be able to be massively helpful, we have a district helper who comes on district camps, and is generally available if you need an extra pair of hands for a trip, residential or unit meeting, but doesn't want to be tied into a regular commitment. We also had a volunteer who ran our division depot but wasn't attached to a unit (took orders for the Girlguiding shop, order them either for delivery or had them delivered to her and let you know when to collect them - units got a % back to spend when ordering through depot).

For behind the scenes admin support specifically, you could offer to help with things like: shopping for supplies for meetings, doing the order for uniform and badges etc, keeping the accounts, applying for gift aid and submitting it annually (I would love someone to sort our units gift aid out! - it's a pain to set up, but once done just seems to require a few hours a year and some forms), or keeping go updated.