Operations Volunteer Roles

We are recruiting for a Peer Mentor Volunteer to join our team in Athena Lewisham; the scope on this job involves….

Job Title: Peer Mentor Volunteer

Location: Athena Lewisham
Contract type: Voluntary, minimum of 6 months

Hours: 6-12 hours per week. Working pattern of 10am to 4pm once or twice a week from Monday to Friday. (Hours can be negotiated) 

We want kind and empathic people to work at Refuge, who believe in equality, diversity, and inclusion, are experts in their area of knowledge, want to make a positive difference and improve the lives of the women and children we support. 

This is an opportunity to volunteer with Refuge as a Peer Mentor, supporting women and children who are impacted by domestic abuse. You will work closely with victims of domestic abuse from the point of crisis to provide emotional and practical support whilst helping them to reduce levels of isolation. 

Closing date: 9am on 15 March 2024

Interview date: 28 March 2024

Benefits

Refuge offers a variety of exciting opportunities to learn, develop and grow in your career. We recognise the value everyone brings to the organisation to achieve our aims and are dedicated to developing and rewarding our staff. More details of our benefits can be found in Job Information Pack.

We are seeking people who can enrich the insights brought to our Board of Trustees through their life experiences and understanding of our service users.

We particularly would like to recruit people with an interest in:

• Joining our Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Working Group
• Helping us drive our IT strategy forward.

Impact Initiatives is an innovative, respected and long-standing charity which has flexed and developed alongside changing needs over its forty plus years of existence. We currently work with over 10,000 people across Sussex each year, have 90+ staff and a turnover of just over £3,000,000.

We live by and deliver all our services within our values of collaboration, integrity, empowerment, effectiveness, creativity, and accountability. 

• Being a trustee is a great way to support a cause you believe in.
• As a respected and responsible role, it is also a brilliant route to develop new skills, gain more experience and enhance your CV.
• Being a trustee can be immensely rewarding, providing both expected and unexpected opportunities for personal development and new challenges.
• Trustee training will be provided alongside support to attend meetings if required.

Requirements

• A commitment to the aims and values of the organisation, and an understanding of some of the issues our service users face.
• An ability to understand and discuss information on the work of the organisation.
• An ability and willingness to discuss ideas and options to help make decisions in the best interests of the organisation and experience of attending and contributing to meetings is helpful but not essential, enthusiasm and commitment to our work and values are more important
• Trustees must be aged 18+

Our Trustees hold four formal in person meetings each year with additional meetings as and when needed. Finance, business development and service delivery reports are circulated before meetings so any queries can be answered prior to the meeting where they are discussed.

Come join our volunteering team working to help change the lives of some of the most vulnerable people in society. Ranked 2023 Q4 by Best Companies as the 8th best charity to work for in the UK, Medaille Trust is one of the UK’s leading charities in the fight against modern slavery. Our innovative model is based on three principles: Prevent, Protect and Pursue.  We are one of the UK’s largest providers of survivor services, with ten safehouses and six outreach hubs, staffed round the clock by specialist staff, working with more than 600 men, women and dependent children each year.  We work to raise awareness in the UK and to provide preventive work in source countries. Our Pursue work helps survivors to engage with police and within the legal system to seek justice and to secure convictions against their perpetrators.

We are looking for a Volunteer to help support us with gardening and working alongside service users to support them with all things gardening related, tasks will include:

•Trimming hedges and bushes, weeding and watering plants and general allotment maintenance.

•Planting and sharing knowledge of plant, flower and food cultivation with service users.

•Helping to keep the allotment tidy.

•Offering a safe and comfortable experience for all service users, showing awareness of service users’ varying physical and mental well-being needs.

Our volunteers come from all walks of life and have a wide range of experience and motivations. Whatever your reason for deciding to volunteer, we want to make sure you enjoy your time with us and know just how much we value your support.

This role requires maturity, and an ability to engage with female adults in a trauma informed way, while working alongside staff members to deliver the activities in line with agreed procedures and systems.

Volunteers need to:

•Be at least 18 years old

•Be able to get to the venue which is based in Southampton

•Be able to commitment regularly

•Have experience or qualifications in gardening, cultivation, harvesting of plants

•Have a good standard of spoken and written English

•Be willing to have an enhanced DBS check

•Have knowledge and understanding of human trafficking issues or willingness to learn

•Have knowledge and understanding of mental health conditions or willingness to learn

•Have an understanding of the importance of professional boundaries in the role

•Have the ability to maintain confidentiality

For full details and how to apply please visit our website and complete an application form.

Come join our volunteering team working to help change the lives of some of the most vulnerable people in society. Ranked 2023 Q4 by Best Companies as the 8th best charity to work for in the UK, Medaille Trust is one of the UK’s leading charities in the fight against modern slavery. Our innovative model is based on three principles: Prevent, Protect and Pursue.  We are one of the UK’s largest providers of survivor services, with ten safehouses and six outreach hubs, staffed round the clock by specialist staff, working with more than 600 men, women and dependent children each year.  We work to raise awareness in the UK and to provide preventive work in source countries. Our Pursue work helps survivors to engage with police and within the legal system to seek justice and to secure convictions against their perpetrators.

We are looking for someone who can help with general maintenance of our safe house – tasks will include:

•General handyperson and maintenance tasks such as installing shelving.

•Lifting and carrying items in a safe manner.

•Sharing knowledge of general maintenance with service users to empower them to do things themselves going forward.

•Maintaining health and safety at all times.

Our volunteers come from all walks of life and have a wide range of experience and motivations. Whatever your reason for deciding to volunteer, we want to make sure you enjoy your time with us and know just how much we value your support.

This role requires maturity, and an ability to engage with female adults in a trauma informed way, while working alongside staff members to deliver the activities in line with agreed procedures and systems.

Volunteers need to:

•Be at least 18 years old

•Be able to get to the venue which is based in Southampton

•Be able to commitment every fortnight

•Be computer literate and have a good standard of spoken and written English

•Be willing to have an enhanced DBS check

•Have knowledge and understanding of human trafficking issues or willingness to learn

•Have knowledge and understanding of mental health conditions or willingness to learn

•Have an understanding of the importance of professional boundaries in the role

•Have the ability to maintain confidentiality

For full details and how to apply please visit our website and complete an application form.

Role Description

Come join our team working to help change the lives of some of the most vulnerable people in society. Ranked 2023 Q4 by Best Companies as the 8th best charity to work for in the UK, Medaille Trust is one of the UK’s leading charities in the fight against modern slavery. Our innovative model is based on three principles: Prevent, Protect and Pursue.  We are one of the UK’s largest providers of survivor services, with ten safehouses and six outreach hubs, staffed round the clock by specialist staff, working with more than 600 men, women and dependent children each year.  We work to raise awareness in the UK and to provide preventive work in source countries. Our Pursue work helps survivors to engage with police and within the legal system to seek justice and to secure convictions against their perpetrators.

Our volunteers come from all walks of life and have a wide range of experience and motivations. Whatever your reason for deciding to volunteer, we want to make sure you enjoy your time with us and know just how much we value your support.

Many of our service users don’t use English as their first language and rely on high quality translation to understand information. Therefore, we are looking for volunteers who can accurately translate English text into any of the languages below:

Mandarin, Bengali, Arabic, Amharic, French, Albanian, Vietnamese, Romanian, Polish, Tigrinya, Punjabi, Urdu and Hindi.

Volunteers need to:

•Be at least 18 years old

•Hold a translating or interpreting qualification or to hold a degree (in any subject) and be fluent in speaking and writing in English, and one or more of the languages above

•Have excellent command of English and other language(s)

•Have grammatical accuracy

•Have excellent proof-reading skills including IT skills

•Have use of own computer

•Be willing to have a basic DBS check

•Have the willingness to learn about human trafficking issues

•Have the ability to maintain confidentiality

To apply please complete an application form on our website.

Would you like to help end food poverty and tackle climate change and CO2 emissions in Greater Manchester, whilst at the same time gaining valuable CV-enhancing experience and skills?

What we offer you

• Induction, training and support from the staff of FareShare and its parent charity, EMERGE 3Rs.

• Practical experience and transferable skills in warehousing and food redistribution.

• Reimbursement of out-of-pocket expenses  – up to £5.80 for travel and up to £3 for lunch, upon completion of a 4 hour shift. (We can also provide you with lunch if you don't bring your own).

• A reference after 2 months with us.

• An understanding of warehousing and logistics, and the importance of food surplus and recycling initiatives to both the community and the environment.

As a sustainability charity, we take surplus food that's donated to us by manufacturers and retailers and redistribute it to people in need across the city region. The front line initiatives we support include food banks, schools, community groups and charities who, in turn, help people who are disadvantaged by poverty.

Our vital work supports people experiencing extreme hardship and prevents perfectly good food going to landfill, where it would otherwise contribute to climate warming. 

We need helping hands in our busy warehouse to receive and catalogue supplies, to load and unload vans, and to prepare orders for delivery. In return we offer training and support to help you obtain skills and experience to boost your CV if you are seeking work. If you're not aiming for employment, volunteering with is is rewarding in many other ways; offering an opportunity to make new friends, keep physically active and 

This role is vital to the work of FareShare, ensuring that the food delivered to our warehouse is correctly sorted, labelled and organised into orders placed by our charities and community groups, (who we call Community Food Members).

It is perfect for someone who is:

a) Looking for a practical activity.

b) Looking for experience and skills to gain employment in the food industry, warehousing and customer service.

c) Wanting to help their community and/or help tackle global warming.

d) Wanting to make new friends.

e) Wanting to keep busy and/or physically fit.

Our volunteer opportunities are available Monday to Friday, for a whole or half day, with shifts between 8:30-am - 12:30pm and 12:30 - 4:30pm. Volunteers are typically involved for one day a week.

What will I be doing?

Receiving, sorting, cataloguing and storing chilled and ambient surplus food in a warehouse, and preparing orders for delivery. You’ll also assist customers when they come to pick up their orders.

• Ensuring food quality and safety by checking ‘use by’ and ‘best before’ dates.

• Sorting and unpacking deliveries, categorising and recording food.

• Assembling food orders placed by charities and community groups.

• Assisting our Community Food Members with their food order collections. 

• Maintaining health and safety and food hygiene standards. 

• Helping with cleaning and other tasks as identified by warehouse staff.

Person Specification 

• Must be physically fit to carry out tasks including lifting and loading.

• Have a good command of English in order to understand and follow instructions and health and safety rules. 

• Have basic literacy and numeracy skills to record quantities and types of food donated.

• Able to work in a manner that respects Health and Safety standards.

• Be happy to complete tasks independently according to instruction.

• Be positive, friendly and enthusiastic about tackling food waste and food poverty.

Must be reliable and able to commit to an agreed session/day.

We are located in our brand new depot at Maynard House, New Smithfield Market, Openshaw, Manchester M11 2WJ.

We are seeking volunteers to assist in our busy surplus food warehouse, where the role includes:

• Ensuring food quality and safety by checking use by and best before dates.

• Sorting and unpacking deliveries, categorising and recording food quantities.

• Assisting our Community Food Member partners with food order collections during scheduled visits to our base. 

• Maintaining high standards of health and safety and food hygiene during sessions.

• Helping with cleaning and other tasks identified by warehouse staff.

The opportunity provides you with skills and training to boost your employability by gaining experience in the food industry, warehousing and customer service, or just enables you to give back to your community, whilst tackling food waste and climate change. It is also perfect for someone who is looking for a practical activity to help boost or maintain fitness.

FareShare is a national charity that fights food poverty and climate change by tackling food waste.

We source food that is surplus to requirements from food retailers and manufacturers, and engage many volunteers to help redistribute this to local Community Food Members (CFMs), who provide meals to people and families experiencing food poverty.

We operate from our FareShare Greater Manchester regional centre, which is based on New Smithfield Market in Openshaw, and has been run by EMERGE 3Rs since 2008.

This role is vital to the work of FareShare; ensuring that the food delivered to our warehouse is correctly sorted, labelled and organised into the orders placed by our charities and community groups.

You will be required to complete introductory sessions before you are confirmed in the role.

We would like to hear from anyone who would be interested in joining the CARA Board of Trustees.   Please see our CARA Trustee Role Description below for details of what is involved, and the qualities, skills and expertise we are looking for.   If you would be interested in becoming a CARA Trustee, please contact us explaining why you would like to become a CARA Trustee, and providing a brief summary of the skills you would bring to the CARA Board.

Please note that  this is an unpaid role.  Trustees' travel and other expenses will be covered.

Role Description

CARA (Centre for Action on Rape and Abuse) works with victims and survivors of sexual violence and child sexual abuse, providing independent, specialist support and promoting and representing their rights and needs. CARA works with adults of all genders, young people (aged 12-19) and children aged under 12 from across mid and north Essex.

Over the last 8 years, CARA has grown significantly. Our client numbers have more than quadrupled and we now offer a wide range of services to victims and survivors of all ages and genders. We currently have a team of 40 full and part-time staff and over 20 sessional counsellors.

CARA is interested in hearing from people who might like to join our Board. As a CARA Board member, you will have an opportunity to be actively involved in the running of a forward-thinking and fastdeveloping feminist charity. Our Board of trustees provide strategic direction and governance to CARA, supporting the management team and overseeing all aspects of our work. CARA’s Board of Trustees are also registered as our directors for the purposes of company law.

CARA trustees have the following statutory duties and responsibilities:

• To set and maintain vision, mission and values.

• To develop strategy.

• To establish and monitor policies.

• To set up employment procedures.

• To ensure compliance with CARA’s governing document (constitution).

• To ensure accountability.

• To ensure compliance with the law.

• To maintain proper financial oversight.

• To respect the role of staff.

• To maintain effective Trustees performance.

• To promote CARA.

Other duties:

In addition to the above statutory duties, each trustee should use any specific skills, knowledge or experience they have to help the Board reach sound decisions. This may involve:

• Scrutinising board papers.

• Leading and contributing to discussions.

• Focusing on key issues.

• Providing guidance on new initiatives.

A CARA trustee should have the following qualities:

• Integrity

• The skills and experience to make informed decisions on governance of a charity.

• A commitment to CARA and our vision, mission, aims and values.

• Willingness to devote the necessary time and effort.

• Strategic vision.

• Good, independent judgement.

• Ability to think creatively.

• Understanding and acceptance of the legal duties, responsibilities and liabilities of trusteeship. Please refer to the Charity Commission guidance 

• Ability to work effectively as a member of a team.

Our current Board have a wide range of skills, and we regularly conduct skills audits to ensure our Board has the expertise needed to ensure CARA’s effective governance. To enhance our existing Board of Trustees, we are particularly seeking applications from people with the following skills and experiences:

• Business acumen

• Income generation

• Knowledge of the Women’s Sector

• Property and premises management.

People from Black and minority ethnic groups are currently under-represented on CARA’s Board of Trustees, and we particularly welcome applications from people from these groups. Applications from survivors of sexual violence or child sexual abuse are always welcome.

All members of CARA’s Board of Trustees are required to make a minimum commitment to the organisation. This includes attendance at Trustees meetings, which are held every other month, starting at 7.30pm. Meetings are usually held on Zoom, but occasional travel to Colchester for face-to-face meetings is also required.

All trustee appointments will be conditional on an enhanced DBS (Disclosure and Barring Service) check, and satisfactory references.

Citizens Advice Exeter and Citizens Advice Torbay are separate and independent charities, with separate Boards of Trustees. For efficiency reasons we share senior staff and have many shared administration functions. We are both looking for new Trustees.

The advice and assistance we give to people helps them to resolve their problems, providing life-changing outcomes. We also work hard both locally and nationally to use the knowledge we get from our clients to influence policy makers and legislation.

Do you want to join an organisation that:

¨ Wants to help the community and change things for the better?

¨ Wants to make sure everyone gets the advice and support they need?

¨ Is committed to valuing diversity and promoting equality?

If so:

¨ Do you have the appropriate skills, and the time?

¨ Do you want to get involved in running influential and important local charities?

 Both Charities  are currently looking to recruit at least two Trustees

Citizens Advice Exeter is also looking to recruit:

• A Vice-Chair Resources to, initially, chair the Resources Committee with a view to becoming the Chair in the next 12 months on the retirement of our current Chair, who has been in post for 20 years.

Citizens Advice Torbay is also looking to recruit:

· A new Treasurer to replace the existing incumbent, who leaves at the end of May 2024, who has been in post for 3 years.

People from all backgrounds are welcome to apply. We actively encourage applicants from minority groups.

Both charities would prefer applicants to be resident close to the EX postcode (for Exeter) and TQ postcode (for Torbay), or to have a good awareness of the local social issues.

You must be able to attend at least eight evening meetings a year (CA Exeter), or at least six meetings a year (CA Torbay). You will need to undertake appropriate training, to keep yourself briefed on current issues, and to think strategically to help drive the Charities to achieve their long-term objectives.

In return, you will benefit by

· Joining a family of paid staff, volunteers and fellow trustees who all work together to provide an excellent quality of service to our clients

· The pleasure of using your skills and experience to help others

· developing new skills and learning from your fellow trustees

· gaining the satisfaction of giving back to your community.