A selection of the opportunities available this week through the Volunteer Centre Dacorum.
Learning IT, languages and arts and crafts in local community centres, made possible by local charity Dacorum Communities for Learning, has become very popular throughout Dacorum with courses running at Highfield, Adeyfield, Warners End, Grovehill, Gadebridge, Bennetts End and Tring.
People are signing up to courses in big numbers so the charity needs more volunteers to ensure courses go from strength to strength.
There are several different volunteering roles on offer:
Trustees. Do you feel strongly about adult learning in the community? If so becoming a trustee could be just for you. People with skills in a variety of areas including marketing, social media, health and safety and fundraising are needed.
Being a trustee is an important role, as along with other trustees, you will be guiding the strategic development of the charity, ensuring it meets its legal requirements, and overseeing financial management.
In addition there is a vacancy for a trustee secretary who can answer correspondence and communicate with other organisations such as the Charity Commission.
As secretary you would ideally need a home PC but there access to a laptop at a community centre can be arranged.
Time commitment for trustees averages about two hours a week and the DCFL trustees meet every two months on Friday mornings at Warners End Community Centre.
There may be additional subgroup meetings from time to time.
IT assistant. If you would like to help this charity in the delivery of courses and are enthusiastic about sharing your IT skills then becoming an IT assistant would be very rewarding.
Assistants work alongside tutors and need to have basic computer skills and knowledge of Microsoft programmes, email and the internet.
They also need to like working with people and have patience and understanding, as they will be helping learners with varying skills levels.
Promotion and advertising assistant. A special volunteer is needed to review DCFL’s current advertising methods and research other ways to promote the training courses which include Word, Internet and email, Excel, PowerPoint, Publisher and also digital photography.
The volunteer needs to be IT literate and have some knowledge and experience of advertising, including the use of social media.
The role will involve creating new publicity materials and working with the project manager to identify potential new areas of work.
Hours are flexible for this role but are likely to be around three hours a week.
> Can you spot a potential good news story? Can you use your public relations and marketing skills to highlight all the exciting things happening in Scouting in Hertfordshire?
Hertfordshire Scouts need someone to track down good ideas for news articles and to promote them to local and regional media outlets.
This role would be ideal for a budding journalist, or someone with previous experience in marketing, PR or media.
Scouts do some amazing things and a volunteer is needed to gather information of what’s happening throughout the county.
There are camps and expeditions, challenge hikes, community and environmental projects, participation in large scale events, both in the UK and overseas and much, much more!
All these activities can be made newsworthy and interesting by the media co-ordinator.
This task is home-based and can be done any time, but there will be occasional evening meetings with colleagues.
Training is available and travel expenses are covered.
To find out more about volunteering generally please visit our website at www.volunteerdacorum.org.
Volunteer Centre Dacorum is a charity that helps other charities by finding them the volunteers they need.