If you think students spend all their spare time avoiding studying, going out with their mates and having a good time then you'd be right. Well our student bloggers do anyway. While they assure us they don't slack on the study, they've got a lot to answer for when it comes to enjoying themselves while volunteering.

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Monday Jun 15, 2009

End of the student year....

 

“I don’t know what you are complaining about – us students work 10 hours a day, 7 days a week, for 2 weeks a year.”

And that’s only true if you work hard during exam time. However, as exams are for some reason an inherent part of the University experience (like debt), I suppose it is only fair to note how it can affect volunteering as a student.

Under some blind assumption that I was going to do some revision, I actually asked both the Citizens Advice Bureau and the Sheffield Live radio station whether I could cancel all of my commitments for three weeks over my exam period. Thankfully they were fine with this, and I guess that is just one of the more obvious upshots to some types of volunteering – as long as people aren’t too dependant on you, it can be very flexible.

After my exams, I started drinking and smoking again. But aside from this, there was also a ‘volunteering showcase’ of all the work that the volunteering committee at my university has done over the past year. The start of this showcase was a kind of gentle social mingling affair, and so I excelled in socially awkwardness and knocking into people. More importantly though, towards the end there were speakers from charities, schools and the Lord Mayor about how they had benefited from the volunteer work done by students here in Sheffield.

I think volunteers generally do things regardless of whether they might by thanked or not, but this was better than a ‘thank you’ - it provided examples of what had been achieved by volunteers over the year, from helping children get through their exams, to raising money for cancer care. Which can show a lot more than a ‘thank you’ anyway, and is probably a better way of recruiting/keeping more volunteers.

Speaking of the flexibility of volunteering, I’m moving home for a while now, so I’ll have to see what else I can get up to in terms of volunteering

Posted by Harry ( 10:33 PM )
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Monday Jun 01, 2009

Volunteering with politicians

The summer is finally here and is going full steam ahead. So is my volunteering.

On the 22^nd of May, I started a casework internship with a Liberal Democrat MP (not naming names due to issues of confidentiality). When I finished my exams, I knew I wanted to do something different, for the summer, from the current volunteering that I am doing, which is based mostly around research, law, young people and music. I am currently doing a degree that combines Law and Politics.

So, when I went to a meeting with my study supervisor at my university, she advised me to also focus on the politics side of my degree. This is when I started looking at the website of Working for an MP, where I then found the above opportunity, went for the interview and got the position. Although I have just started the position, I find it thoroughly different from anything I have pursued before. As a casework intern, I have already learnt effective methods of referring people’s problems to specific council members, how to maintain effective communication with a constituent, how to summarize large bits of information and how to write effective letters. As well as this, I have gained a wider understanding of the campaigns that this MP is passionate about, through the pre – election preparation. My previous assumptions have been challenged as I have realised that an office of an MP can be extremely busy, that they do try to act as advocates of the general public and that, even in today’s world, they can still be said to be fully representative of the views of the public. In the future, I am also going to be able to sit in with this MP when she has meetings with the public just so I know what kind of issues are present in this constituency and am also going to take full responsibility for helping people with their problems through the telephone.

Things also took a very exciting turn for me, this month, as I am now not very far from qualifying as a generalist advisor with the CAB. I have just finished a course which mainly involved me practising my interviewing skills on a variety of legal topics that included employment and benefits. After this practice, I could finally be unleashed on the general public! From this course, I learnt that I had to go over many of the legal principles that I had learnt already, had to slightly amend my communication technique and mainly just had to show the client that I was listening to their problem. I think the hardest thing for me in the course was learning that there is not always going to be a positive solution for the client. In many cases, all we can really do is listen as their problem has gone too far.

Lastly, I also visited Portcullis House, Westminster on behalf of IARS. I went to a debate, conducted with some politicians and young people that centred on the issues of Young People and the Criminal Justice System. My objective was to take notes on the debate so I could write an article for IARS Youth Voice Journal based around this. I found this day very disappointing as the politicians who were present did not really answer any questions clearly. This debate was meant to produce change and was a chance for politicians to show that they are on a young person’s side. Instead, the politicians just churned out information that we had heard before and surprisingly, were not such effective speakers. I have yet to meet up with other IARS volunteers and write this up. I will keep you posted.

Here’s to next month and let’s hope it is as good as this month was. I will also be talking about Lifetracks and how people can still get involved!

Posted by Rochelle ( 3:02 PM )
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Sunday May 17, 2009

Volunteering Online

It is exam revision time, and so I find myself attached to my laptop for a ridiculous amount of time each day, and also doing a ridiculously small amount of revision. As I’m going to spend the next three weeks avoiding Property Law by sampling whatever the internet can offer me, I thought it might be apt to talk about online volunteering.

Obviously the emergence of the internet has brought new opportunities to volunteer, and new organisations to work with. In some Citizens Advice Bureaux you can advise people on their problems through e-mail, or you can use your Ebay nous and help Oxfam with their online shop. These are just two examples of the traditional notion of volunteering, but done online. However, there are other things happening on the internet.

Take Wikipedia for instance. This free online encyclopaedia depends almost entirely on people giving up their time up for free. Some users spend hours of the day deleting Wikipedia vandalism, or adding new information to articles about such absurdities as exploding whales. However, these users are rarely noted as ‘volunteers’.

It goes further: forums, blogs, even social networking sites - like the Bermuda triangle for students that is Facebook - all these sites depend on time given up by their users, without payment. Again, these users do not call themselves ‘volunteers’.

Whilst it is probably a little far-fetched to pass off 5 hours of Facebook stalking as ‘volunteering’, I do think that the contributions made on sites such as Wikipedia really should come under the V banner. After all, it’s pretty hard to nail down what volunteering is essentially about anyway.

Without boring you by discussing what makes something ‘voluntary’, or where the word’s obscure Latin roots lie (from: voluntas “will,” and velle “to wish,” by the way); I suppose we can agree that most things done for something other than yourself, and for free, might come under volunteering.

And if we agree on that, then this is great: we have a lot more volunteers than we first thought, and not just online. Additionally, if we carried this message more, there wouldn’t be any qualms about the supposed negative perception of volunteering – because everybody is doing it, it’s just at the moment they don’t call it volunteering.

I’m hopeful anyway, and as a short aside here are some websites which the charity, UK Citizens Online Democracy runs. If you are interested in doing some online volunteering, they are always looking for more help:

Theyworkforyou – Keeping tabs on your MPs and what they get up to

Fixmystreet – Making sure the council knows when those potholes get too much

Pledgebank – Want to do something, but only if other people will do it too? Try here.

Posted by Harry ( 7:19 PM )
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Tuesday Apr 28, 2009

Getting the edge over other students

Volunteering is very enjoyable as I have discovered.  There is one more month until I finish my university exams. I can already taste the freedom. Then my volunteering commitments can proceed with full speed ahead until the end of the summer. I have decided to take a constructive break in my exam revision by writing this blog entry.

Apart from my volunteering commitment with the youth done through Independent Academic Research Studies, the last Thursday and Friday was spent on a 2 day residential as organised by Participation Works. I am part of the youth advisory group PW EAR and we are currently in the process of developing an evaluative tool that can be used to assess resources that are created to stimulate and develop the skills of young people. Throughout both the days, we learnt how to be a good trainer and a general how to evaluate resources whether large or small. I also learnt how to use the flip camera for the first time in my life and am now going to be recommending this as an excellent tool for marketing. On the Friday, we were more productive as we decided on the name for our evaluative group, designed a logo for our group and creating a marketing video on flip. We also came up with a lot of ideas on how we can market our new brand/ tool. And of course, the great thing about a residential is that you learn to bond with the other members of the group really easily and the work is done at a much more relaxed pace than if there was just one day set aside for all tasks.

Volunteering with the Disability Law Service is challenging but very rewarding as per usual. Sometimes, people who call do want to tell you their entire life story and then only at the end, one would notice a legal problem that we can help them with. It is very sad really because you can feel the desperation and exasperation in their voices when they call up as usually they have been referred to a countless number of organisations before they can get any help. In the future, I might be going on a Samaritans communications training course due to being a volunteer with the Disability Law Service and so am looking forward to that. 

I often find it easier to talk and advise people face to face which is what I have to do as a trainee adviser with the CAB. This is mainly because you have the very useful tool of body language on which my training from when volunteering with the Police Service has proved to be very useful. Last Friday we had a district training day which was useful as not only was I given training on the new Employment law legislation that deals with problems at work but was also highlighted to the current gigantic problem that is debt and was introduced to mortgage rescue schemes and debt relief orders. I am only in my second year of university studying Law but am already learning about legal rules that would only be dealt with in my final year. Hence, through my volunteering I have an academic and vocational edge over the other students.

 

Posted by Rochelle ( 9:35 AM )
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Thursday Apr 23, 2009

At Least it is Sunny

 

Well at least it is sunny. I’ve had a good Easter, I don’t know about you. Literally, I don’t know how your Easter has been, so I hope it has been good.

Last week a co-volunteer on Sheffield live 93.2fm managed to get free tickets to see a night of stand up comedy through interviewing the comedians on his radio show. Arnold Brown did a set that was the best stand-up I have ever seen – I was crying with laughter - and we got in through the guest list, instead of paying the £16 ticket cost. My point? Well, I guess that if you give up time for free, sometimes you might get free things in return – which has to be good (the best things in life are free etc. etc.)

Next week Sheffield Live is hosting its first “Radiothon”, essentially a week of fundraising appeals and events, and as a result the show that I am involved with will be going out live from Sheffield’s winter gardens. We’ll definitely get more publicity, but whether it will be of the kind that the station is after with me at the helm, remains to be seen. Anyway, to further the cause of the station we have decided to try and get a Sheffield based celebrity on the show for an interview. Michael Palin, Sean Bean, Noel Sharky, David Blunkett, Roots Manuva, Martin Simpson are all being tried, but if my recent, half-hearted, attempts to get Bob Dylan along (i.e. sending an email to bobdylan.com at 4am asking if he’d fancy it) are anything to go by then we might have to disappoint our starry eyes.

Not that it matters greatly. The best people I have met and interviewed for the radio show have been thoroughly un-famous. When we have interviewed a government minister (only the one, mind) or a trade union official, it has rarely resulted in anything other than a lacklustre conversation. Speak to the bloke down the road (he did actually work just down the road) who runs a free access space for the public to get creative with computers/technology, and the results have been far more involving, interesting and valuable.

What does this mean? No idea.

Volunteering is a good way to get freebies and meet interesting people (as long as they aren’t trade union officials). I’m hardly unearthing the secret of youth there, but maybe that’s what the ramble above means.

 

Posted by Harry ( 8:55 PM )
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Thursday Mar 26, 2009

Paying to Volunteer?

 

 

A few weeks ago some members of the volunteering committee, and the volunteering office at my university, organised a weekend of 1-2 day volunteering opportunities.

Over 150 students took part, doing anything from painting to gardening to creating a dramatic play on community history. Everyone (including me) seemed to really enjoy it, and it gave a really good taster for how rewarding a bit of volunteer work can be.

The interesting thing though was that to put on just one weekend of short-term volunteering opportunities, it cost the volunteering office around £4,000.

I found this interesting because sometimes it just seems so perverse to have to pay in order to give your time up for something. It's not as if Gordon Brown has been paying money to senior bankers just so that he can bail out their failing institutions.

Hang on a minute......

One student asked me what events we were planning next week, and although I knew Just Do It was only held annually, I didn't realise that this was because it cost so much.

I can't see a way around it: the money was used for essential things like food, equipment and transport for the volunteers; and it was given to volunteer organisations that are usually pretty strapped for cash anyway.

But after getting that feel-good factor (perhaps naïvely) on the way home from a project – the one where you feel like you've actually helped out somewhere – the fact that your free time and hard work alone was not enough can feel a little bit demoralising.

Like I said, I'm not sure what can change, and I certainly don't think it's the fault of the organisations that were accepting volunteers. But whilst I could see why you might have to pay to volunteer in Africa; or how the popularity of National Trust conservation holidays might lead to slightly inflated prices; I didn't realise that even with non-residential volunteering sometimes you might still have to pay to give up your time.

It's a shame, because for students who might be a little dubious of long term volunteer commitments, weekend volunteering 'tasters' seem to work really well.

Ideas on a S.A.E. please!

Harry.

Posted by Harry ( 10:23 PM )
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Friday Mar 20, 2009

My commitments

What are my volunteering commitments? I mainly volunteer within the social welfare law stream as I am currently doing a degree in Law. My first volunteering commitment within this sector was with Independent Academic Research Studies (IARS), who is a not- for- profit youth think tank that empower young people (16 -25) to change social policy and practice. They do this by providing young people with training in research and human rights. With this training, young participants are able to take part in stages or all of their research projects. The current project that they are work on is Young People and Social Cohesion which looks at why most young people do not want to integrate themselves into society. At the end, recommendations for policy change will be presented to local government ministers. Then through volunteering for IARS, I was introduced to the Law Centres Federation, the organisation that manages the law centres around the country. So far, with them, I have co - organised workshops centred around young people and have given speeches at the Law Centres Annual Conference and the Advice Alliance Conference. Within the next few weeks, I am about to start a new project with them which I will let you know about in my next piece of writing.

Lastly, my two other main voluntary commitments include training as an adviser for the CAB and volunteering for the Disability Law Service.

Since I also enjoy creative writing, in my spare time, I write for the 405, the Fat Blog and youlikewelike.com

Of course, I will go into more detail with my next input for this blog and you'll just have to keep on reading.

All I will say for now is enjoy your experiences. And if you do not have any, get some. And if you feel about writing about its awesomeness, please do!

Till next time then...

Rochelle xxx 

Posted by Rochelle ( 3:30 PM )
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Why volunteering ticks all the boxes

Hi everyone! The name is Rochelle, am 21 and I am currently in my second year of university. My university and volunteering commitments take up most of my time and work is always secondary. I wanted to contribute to this do-it.org blog as I wanted to improve my creative writing skills. So I thought what better subject matter to talk about other than my volunteering?

Also, I would like to highlight to other students that volunteering can not only give you transferable skills but can also provide you with that technical experience that you will not necessary get with your academic studying. I know that lecturers and even teachers always say that it is no good to get a job as it will interfere with your studies. They are partly right but it is still very important to get that experience that will make you stand out. Volunteering, unlike work, does not have to be time consuming nor is it always necessary to work in a pressurized environment. There are always going to be people who will be very willing to help you develop to the best of your potential and at the end there is not fear of being fired or being reviewed on performance. It is one form of employment where you can tell the employer what you want to do and what skills you would like to improve or achieve. There are no formal ties established and not targets to be met. I have also felt that everyday is different and whenever I have gone for job interviews I have always managed to use examples from my volunteering commitments to demonstrate to the employer how I would react in different situations. Lastly, employers are very impressed if you have given up your time for no remuneration. Just think, if you cannot get a job due to lack of experience, then do not just sit on the sidelines and do nothing.

Get yourself out there by getting transferable skills from volunteering so that you can put these skills into practice when you do get a job. No one ever said anything comes easy!

Posted by Rochelle ( 3:24 PM )
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Tuesday Mar 17, 2009

From the classroom to a retreat centre

Hi everyone, my name’s Emma and I am seventeen years old. I live in Lancashire but my birthplace is Liverpool.

I live at home with my mum and dad I am in my first year at college studying for my A-Levels. My favorite subject is Philosophy. After college I hope to attend university to study for a degree in Philosophy and Theology. I aim to teach Philosophy one day. I enjoy writing, reading and learning. I also enjoy shopping and of lots of volunteering!

I also enjoy my voluntary work and as soon as my summer exams have ended I hope to increase the time I have to volunteer! I am currently working with young people with disabilities both in and outside the classroom environment and hope to learn more about youth work and teaching during my time volunteering. I am hoping to attend retreat centre in order to enhance my experience and understanding in the summer holidays. In September I aim to complete a course in youth work and German (hopefully) as I have a pen friend in Germany whom I write to regularly.

Posted by Emma ( 12:12 PM )
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Tuesday Feb 17, 2009

Choose Leisure Wear and Matching Luggage.

 

I have to sort something out that has been niggling me a little bit: for someone who writes a blog on ‘volunteering’, I hardly do any. Twice a week at my local community radio station has been my entire diet of voluntary action since returning to Sheffield early last month.

I hope that doesn’t make me some kind of fraud: I certainly tried not to pretend I was anything else but a low-life student. I like volunteering, and I like writing about it too, but I am not saying that I am some archetypal volunteer demi-god.

I have been looking for some new volunteer opportunities though, especially ones that go through my student union at Sheffield University. Especially ones that will help me get through my Law course at Sheffield University.

Unfortunately an opportunity again fell through this week and due to repeated communication failure between me and the organisation I have decided to dolefully give up hope of volunteering there.

However I am going to look for any opportunities teaching English to non-speakers and any one day activities coming up in Sheffield. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Oh, and before I go – what about CRB checks? Why do we have to have a different CRB check for each organisation we volunteer or work for? Could we not have one over-arching CRB check which cleared us for a year?

Someone I tried to volunteer with through WWOOF – Willing Workers On Organic Farms – likened the need for so many CRB checks as a stealth tax.

At the cost of £36 each, someone is benefiting somewhere, and it is also so frustrating when you want to take part in something short-notice but then have to wait 4 weeks for your CRB to come through.

Next update should be about online volunteering, including Wikipedia and Youtube.

Posted by Harry ( 1:20 AM )
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Saturday Jan 31, 2009

Volunteering in 2009

So the UK has entered its first recession since 1991, and the Guardian is providing us with an exciting timeline of the 'mounting job losses', which are creating the highest UK unemployment level since 1997. Considering we all survived the 1990s the papers may be over-exaggerating the impending financial doom a little, but as jobs are undoubtedly being lost and with 'thrift' the word of the month, the position of the voluntary 'Third Sector' is certain to change.

In fact this change is already happening, but it is happening in two different ways. As unemployment rises the voluntary sector benefits as the government looks to keep people learning new skills, interacting with other people, and most importantly for them: away from the effects of long-term unemployment.

Labour has already announced plans for employers to be paid £2,500 for every person they recruit and train that was previously unemployed for over six months but as well as this, a government white paper also outlined that 'a new full-time structured vocational volunteering programme is being created'. For more coverage check Kate Bowgett's blog at volunteermanagers.org.uk.

As the government is seemingly only able to bail-out banks and big businesses, volunteer advice centres also stand to receive increased state funding as the government seeks to rely on them to sort out the people's problems. The government has already announced increased funding for the Citizen's Advice Bureau to deal with the increase of debt problems.

On the other hand it is common sense that in periods of financial uncertainty, people spend less. If you're saving money the non-essentials are the first to go; the result is that many voluntary organisations which are dependent on donations will begin to suffer in the downturn. I know from my own experience on the voluntary radio show Sheffield Live (93.2fm) that businesses are also less likely to support the third sector if they worried about cutting costs.

Similar themes appear in Richard Gutch's article in the Guardian – 'Tough times for the third sector'

So voluntary organisations may face a mixed future in 2009, but it is also clear that it is now that we will need them the most – to support those in need (Rethink, Shelter etc.) and to provide the public with an outlet for edification and creativity (Do-It, VSO, etc.)

Harry.

 

Posted by Harry ( 1:25 AM )
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Thursday Jan 08, 2009

Happy New Year: Wishing you bail-outs and not bankruptcies!

 

So Christmas and New Year are out of the way, and we are now faced with the 2009 calendar, full of little empty white boxes waiting to be filled in.

  I have been living back in Scarborough over this Christmas break and unfortunately I haven’t being doing much volunteering over the past few weeks. I started to practice the art of student-laziness-during-holiday-periods. To counter the huge amount of work I managed to do over term-time, obviously......

  However, my local Citizen’s Advice Bureau (CAB) re-opened their doors on 5 January and I have been volunteering there over the past few days. I am still training to be an adviser, but finally I can see some kind of progression and I am enjoying it so much more because of this.

Every now and then at the CAB you stumble upon little trinkets of surprising information which enlighten you to one aspect of the world.

This week I was looking up Attachment of Earning’s Orders – which is basically where the government gets a court judgment allowing them to take money directly out of a person’s income, through that person’s employer. This is in order for that person to repay any debts owed to the government (for instance Council Tax arrears).

The catch comes where a person has been making payments through his/her employer for some time, but then his/her employer ceases to trade and therefore cannot make more payments to the government.

In such instances some local authorities may apparently argue that the client has to start from the beginning again, repaying all the money that s/he has already repaid, as well has the rest. A re-re-payment.

Who said the government wasn’t draconian?  

  Unfortunately I cannot talk too much about what I have been doing there, as the service is completely confidential, but If you’d like to help advising people with problems such as this then I am sure most bureaux would be more than happy to train new advisers, with some opportunities listed on the do-it database, and further information on the CAB website.

 In the Scarborough Bureau, and I assume nationwide, there has been a big increase in the amount of clients coming in to the CAB with debt problems, often caused by the backlash from the current economic climate, so the more volunteers the better.

 

--

Anyway, I’ll be returning to the icy cold of my student house in Sheffield next week and I am looking forward to continuing my volunteering back in South Yorkshire. It’s interesting to have almost two different lives in two different places.

Despite this, I will probably be cutting a figure of considerable rancour throughout the next four weeks, whilst my exams and the lack of heat conspire to break any springtime optimism I may be encountering.

Have a good 2009.

Posted by Harry ( 5:22 PM )
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Wednesday Dec 10, 2008

Pre-Christmas Ramble

 

  Just a short update before my term finally ends and I return home to Scarborough – where I can still get some meals cooked for me. Get in.

  Staving off the nihilistic rage, I have been doing a bit of flyering for the winter volunteering opportunities I mentioned in my last blog. It's quite enjoyable really - you watch people squirm to get away from you, some outright ignoring you, and others regarding you suspiciously as they walk by. Of course, most people just take the flyer, and some are even a bit enthusiastic about it.

  I tried to be as friendly as I could be, and not to shove anything in front of people's faces. The entrance into our union at Shef Uni is (probably like most unions) like a crowded maze of people trying to hand you things, usually advertising the latest night of drinking under oddly disconcerting names – Carnage, Brain Damage, Liver Cancer (ok I made that one up) etc.

  As I was flyering for volunteering I thought that a) this was ok, and b) it should be done in a different way to the profit making promotions around us. So I tried to only give flyers to people who had first said that they were interested, although I did stop everyone who past me and asked if they were in fact interested.

  My mate thinks differently. He cited Red Nose Day and Comic Relief as getting money for people who need it by forcing the issue – a TV version of shoving a flyer in your face and saying people need your money (ok, maybe a little more subtle). Otherwise, he said, they simply wouldn't get the funds needed to help.

  So should volunteering, and more especially fundraising, become profit driven? Is it simply the higher cash taken = the better job done. This is definitely Oxfam's way of looking at things.

 Or should we keep in mind the fact that a lot of the problems we want to help are possibly linked to everyone's exuberance for chasing money (homelessness, poverty, even mental health issues)?   

--

On a lighter and better note, David Blunkett recently announced that he's keen to see people from 16-25 years old do a period of 'intensive' volunteering for at least 6 months, to bind us all together (obviously). My friend spotted this gem in the article:

When asked whether the scheme should become a form of compulsory national service Mr Blunkett replied: "It's been reinforced to me in the last year that you can't have volunteering unless it's voluntary."

Gold Star for David.

Posted by Harry ( 12:27 AM )
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Friday Dec 05, 2008

Chinatown....

Sorry it's been a while – luckily I can blame it on my new job, which annoyingly means I have less time to volunteer, and the cold, which makes me type really slowly...!

As the weeks have gone by in Marie Curie I got to grips with the demon till and unleashed a plague of incorrect change and incoherent beepings upon the unsuspecting customers. Add to this the fact that the steamer, which we use to make sure everything is pressed and beautiful before it goes on the shop floor was making the lights fuse and the customers flee for daylight and an idea of the weekly mayhem starts to emerge!

Finally, just as things started to quiet down, I slid a box of patterned china plates off the desk.... Seeming to fall in slow motion, the fragmented pieces of white china covered in curling yellow daffodils cascaded to the floor in an avalanche and swept from the till to the window display at the far end of the shop. For a long moment everything was silent – customers turned round, I looked at the mess and the customers looked at me. I was totally frozen in embarrassed horror but just as I was wishing the floor would open and swallow me a voice behind me said, 'We'll have to think of a nickname for you now' and everybody started to laugh.

Suddenly there was a long queue at the till and everyone was sympathising and making jokes and teasing. The china was marked from a 30 piece set to a 22 and the day went on, broken plates being rapidly overshadowed by the memories of another volunteer who told us how when in her twenties, she and her friends had travelled across the country by train every time a ship came in and spent the day going about with the sailors!! Now in her seventies and dosed on steroids (or 'stair-rods' as one regular calls them), her tales of how her grandmother had greeted her boyfriends by looking at the label inside their coat had us all doubled up, helpless with laughter.

If you want to look at volunteering in a local Marie Curie shop in your area have a look at the website, which has vacancies for fundraising, admin and other kinds of volunteering too.

Posted by Olivia ( 3:00 PM )
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Sunday Nov 23, 2008

It's Christmas. Again.

 
It's getting seriously cold now, my friend tried to type out his essay wearing gloves earlier today (I'm not joking!), and none of us can work out how to bleed the radiators in our freezing, non-insulated house. Apparently this lack of bleeding is why, every morning, the radiator in my room heats up, ever so slightly, at the bottom – providing the faintest insight as to what life might be like with a fully functioning radiator. Imagine that.

Anyway, that digression links neatly into the fact that Christmas is coming, the annual 'BNP membership list leakage' has already happened and also, there are lots of opportunities to help out and showcase largesse anywhere you'd like over the festive period.

In Sheffield the Uni's Volunteer Committee are running a four day publicity event called 'Winter Warmers', just to make sure that everyone is aware of what opportunities are out there for anyone interested. I'm even thinking of joining in. And I hate Christmas.

Here are some of the things going on in Sheffield, just to give any of you a taster as to what might be available in your area:

• Christmas Gifts Appeal: "Brighten up Christmas for the local homeless, families fleeing domestic violence, refugees and asylum seekers by preparing them a gift"
• Christmas Party: "Get into the party spirit this Christmas by helping to run activities, supervise dodgem cars and prepare a buffet for children suffering from life limiting illnesses and their siblings."
• Santa 5k: "In aid of Amy's Retreat, why not lend a hand (register runners, hand out costumes etc), or enter as a runner (£5 entry fee).  Free Santa outfit provided!"
• Homeless and Rootless at Christmas (HARC): "Help provide food and entertainment to guests at this city-centre shelter for homeless and vulnerable people over Christmas & New Year"
I'm seriously considering the 5k run in a Santa costume. Of course, to check any events going on in your area you can use the Do-It database search or alternatively get in touch with your local Volunteer Centre

and they will be able to find you something no doubt.

Maybe I'll be able to get some pictures up of someone hating Christmas whilst simultaneously doing a 5k run in a Santa costume haha.

  

Posted by Harry ( 12:22 AM )
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