Other Volunteering Opportunities

Volunteering in York

Volunteering is not about being worthy or out of pocket, wearing sensible shoes or doing something dull. Nor do you have to sign your life away. It should be about giving as much of your time as you feel appropriate to do something that is fun and challenging, with a group of friends or as an individual.

Volunteering

York Millennium Volunteers is a city wide initiative and part of a national volunteering campaign that seeks to help young people share their skills, ideas, time and energy with the community. It can also provide an ideal opportunity to develop new and existing skills, pursue an academic interest, a hobby or even further your career plans.

Getting active

We have a wide range of opportunities and our knowledge and contacts in York’s community and voluntary sectors means that we are well placed to find you that perfect placement.

For example:

  • if you have a passion for performance, think about involving yourself in one of the local drama groups either working back stage, teaching drama to young people or working with advertising and promotion.
  • if you enjoy talking to people, you could get involved with one of the many befriending schemes within the city supporting elderly, young or disabled people.
  • if you live for sport, help others to do so through coaching within schools, youth groups and local sports clubs.
  • if you are a whiz on a computer, you could help with one of the numerous groups desperate for their own website.

The possibilities are almost endless - view more opportunities on the website

To become a Millennium Volunteer you can register on line or, better still call in and talk to Laura, Heather or Katrina in the Careers Centre on campus. If you can’t find anything that you want, don’t despair - tell us what you are looking for and we will do our best to find it for you.

The York MV team will continue to support your volunteering through regular reviews that will help you get the most from your experience. If you give more than 50 hours we will invite you to one of our infamous award ceremonies! There are nationally recognised awards for volunteers completing 100 and 200 hours too. If you are already volunteering, you can still become a Millennium Volunteer and receive recognition for your achievements to date.

Something a little different

Read International needs new Project Coordinators now!

To establish an international volunteering project, manage the process and see it through to an end.  In September 2007 you must establish a team of 20-25 student volunteers to attend weekly meetings for your very own Tanzania Book Project.  By June 2008 your team must have collected 40,000 good quality text books from your surrounding 200 secondary schools, sorted through the books and you will send the best 25,000 to Tanzania.  Your team must fundraise between £8,000 and £10,000 to fund your project.  Your team must also give at least 20 presentations to your local secondary schools about your project.  You will be supported every step of the way by the registered charity READ International, a newly established award winning student initiative to solve the educational resource problem in Tanzania.   3 Specific roles are:

The Finance Leader is responsible for raising a grand total of £7,500 towards your READ Book Project costs by running fundraising events throughout the year

The Communications Leader is responsible for motivating schools to donate unused textbooks and must coordinate volunteers to give school presentations. They must make contact with local companies to help with the additional drive for sports and stationary equipment and should also aim to attract as much media publicity as possible.   

The Book Collection Leader is responsible for gathering approximately 40,000 textbooks and other educational resources, including sports equipment and teaching aids and collecting them at a central location.  They then must help the team sort through the textbooks, matching the relevant books to the Tanzanian syllabus and finding 25,000 relevant ones to send to Tanzania.

 

Please contact Maria at YUSU on 433724 if you are interested in applying.

  Other Stuff thats going on

Fancy yourself as a budding Carole Smilie or Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen? Or perhaps you are more of a Diarmuid Gavin or Alan Titchmarsh?

Each July we take on three challenging projects along the lines of Ground Force or Changing Rooms. These could be renovating a Charity Shop or Childrens Play Area to building a Sensory Garden for the Blind. Teams of about 8 volunteers are given training and a budget, then left to design and develop a project within the month.

Something new

Are you already working with a local group and can see an area that needs developing? Have you got an idea for creating a new project that will benefit the community: If so why not help make it happen yourself?

Active York is a new fund that has been set up to enable staff and students within the University to develop projects that will benefit the community. It aims to encourage the sharing of the expertise and resources that are available in the University and encourage new and innovative volunteering projects.

Money has already been made available to support these projects (amongst others):

  • Sports Volunteer Programme; based in the Athletics Union, students are trained as coaches in one of 5 sports and then provide coaching within local schools and community groups.
  • York Youth Chorus; a new choir set up in Tang Hall for young people aged 9-18.
  • MEG; a group that hopes to encourage enjoyment and participation of a wide range of different forms of world music.

For more details of these and other projects please see the Active York website.

If you have an idea for a new project contact Heather Richardson for more information.

Page Created: 8th Sep, 2007
Last Updated: 12:15pm on 9th May, 2008 by Maria O'Keeffe - Volunteering Co-ordinator