Volunteering

I am a volunteer at a charity shop for our local children's Hospice. I had to give the names of two referees. I handle money for the charity so I don't mind this and my ex colleagues from the bank where I used to work were happy to give me a reference.

The manageress really appreciates her volunteers and tries to keep us all happy, even having us all round to her house for our Christmas do.

You are probably right emmasnan. I have had plenty of experience of helping my DD and DS fill in application forms for both voluntary and part time jobs ( both students) and it is bonkers just how much detail they need to know. A part time job stacking shelves in Sainsburys is not an application to join MI5, but when you read the form you would wonder....

Sorry Gill T57 I didn't mean to offend. I know a lot of young people are brilliant volunteers and I didn't mean it to appear as a sweeping comment
But I think some organisations now make the application process rigorous to make sure volunteers really are eager to do the volunteering job.

As the mother of a teenage girl who spent every Sunday for two years cleaning out animal cages, walking dogs and feeding cats, chickens, goats and whatever, and turned up in all weather I find your comments a little sweeping emmasnan.

A lot of younger people now realise it looks very good to see certain types of volunteering on application forms when applying for jobs.
They apply to volunteer undertake any training and then once accepted do not actually give any time to the charity.
Sorry, perhaps not relevant to the original theme but another view of things.

I am doing a few hours each week in a Fair-trade Shop. The 3 Directors are extremely grateful and thank all the volunteers regularly. There are no targets and no bureaucracy. The stock is interesting and ever changing -all new nothing second hand so that pleases my pernickityness. The customers are always very nice, some are regulars especially for the food items. There are a number of these shops around - worth looking into?

I also serve on the Board of a Charity as Trustee but a little more work and you do need business skills for this so there is an interview and application but it was very swiftly done.

I found applying for voluntary work quite hard really,quite a few I applied for did not even bother to reply and two wanted to dictate the hours I was expected to work ? I thought the clue was to volunteer I said to one manager so I obviously never heard from her again.
For the past two years I have helped at the church shop on a Saturday and for Chenynobel Children on a Tuesday afternoon both lovely people to work for and they are both grateful for your time and effort.
apricot I did steaming at one big name company and it is back breaking,they expected a four hour shift ? I don't even do that on my own family ironing I hope you enjoy your new job though.

My colleagues, volunteers and o all left the charity we helped at on the same day as the head of the shops decided on a very similar approach as detailed above.
Since then one of our friends went into the shop and was told that the organisation did not want volunteers.
We all moved on mass to another charity shop where we have felt most welcome and common sense prevails. We all, therefore, work extra hard to make sure we sell as much as possible.

It does sound a bit excessive, but all charities have a duty of care to staff and customers and so need to check people out...

Wouldn't have imagined the palaver, but not surprised. One or two would be put off by it all. Good for you for going ahead with it.