Whether it's stewarding at a festival, writing for a magazine, or producing works of art, volunteering for creative projects is bound to get those juices flowing.

All | Carl | Catherine | Rhiannon | Mei | Gaby | Enlight Youth Group | Centrepoint

Monday Jul 07, 2008

A little introduction is in order.

Hello all,

I'm an 18 year old female who, having just left college and reluctant to speed off to university, is embarking on her gap year. Of course, the clever thing to do would be to get a shop job or bar work and earn as much money as physically possible to fund my travels - But that wouldn't satisfy my self-imposed criteria of a "fun and varied" gap year.

So, despite the inevitable complaints my bank account will be making a few months down the line, I'm spending my summer volunteering at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, working eight to twelve hour shifts everyday in return for accommodation and free access to the shows.

I'm not new to volunteering. For my Gold Millennium Volunteer award, I wrote for a magazine called Evolve, taught Tae Kwon Do to schoolchildren, spent two weeks at the Vitalise holiday centre for disabled people and raised funds for WarChild as part of the Envision committee. However, this is the first time I'm volunteering for my own selfish enjoyment and I'm looking forward to it!

Over the next few weeks, I'll be updating this diary with photographs and hopefully videos of my experience at the Fringe, as I spend six weeks building theatre sets, helping with drama rehearsals and hanging out with dance troupes before we tear the whole place down again, ready for next year.

Take care, Mei

Posted by Mei ( 2:09 PM )
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The summer edition

Last week I went into the office to meet with Felicitie (the Volunteer Support Officer). As I'd been away travelling for three months it was a good opportunity for Felicitie to update me on the things I'd missed. Felicitie told me that she'd sent the spring newsletter to the MV coordinator in Wales, who had sent it to GwirVol – a panel of young volunteers who live throughout the country. I found that very exciting as the coordinator was obviously impressed with the newsletter!  

I also found out that I had completed 50 hours of volunteering and as part of the Millennium Volunteers' scheme I received my first certificate. A rather embarrassing photo shoot then ensued of me receiving my certificate from Felicitie! I've decided to use the photo in my column.

At the moment I'm in the process of collecting articles for the summer edition. So far it's going to include features on the success of Volunteers' Week, Global Xchange visiting Swansea, and an article I've written about volunteering with elephants. At the office I read press releases for Volunteers' Week and the Global Xchange programme, and began to adapt them to suit the newsletter. Felicitie also gave me some pictures of Volunteers' Week and I chose which ones to use with the article.

In the next few days I'm going to meet with the Global Xchange volunteers. They're from South Africa and England and will be volunteering in Swansea for 11 weeks. I'm hoping to get some more information about the scheme and see if they want to write some articles about their own experiences.

Posted by Catherine ( 9:14 AM )
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Hello from Swansea

Hi, my name is Catherine and I’m 23. I volunteer with Swansea Council for Voluntary Service as a newsletter editor. I’ve been volunteering with the organisation since last October and in this time I’ve helped to produce two editions. After graduating from university last summer, I decided to take a gap year and spend my time doing evening courses, volunteering and travelling.  Volunteering is very important to me because I’m pursuing a career in journalism and it’s a great way to get some experience. It’s also a lot of fun!

I volunteer from home as well as going into the SCVS office. I often go to the office to meet with Felicitie Walls who is the Volunteer Support Officer. Felicitie tells me about upcoming events and new volunteering opportunities, and we discuss what’s going into the next edition. At home I often arrange the newsletter on the computer. One of the first things I did when I began volunteering was to create a new template for the newsletter.  We don’t have any fancy programs available to us so we use Word.  

When the newsletter is complete it’s sent out to Millennium Volunteers in Swansea. For those not familiar with the scheme, Millennium Volunteers is a nationwide programme that recognises the contributions of young people aged 16-24. Volunteers are awarded certificates for every 50, 100 and 200 hours they spend volunteering.  The aim of our newsletter is to create a community amongst MVS in Swansea and keep them informed about new opportunities. We encourage MVs to contribute to the newsletter and often feature personal accounts of volunteers’ experiences.

At the moment I’m working on the summer edition of the newsletter. I think the newsletter has come a long way since I began volunteering. More MVS are getting involved and we recently acquired an illustrator and a new writer!

Posted by Catherine ( 9:10 AM )
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