VOLUNTEER NEWS

VOLUNTEER NEWS

by Rachel, Volunteer Coordinator at George House Trust

Its “bin” a wonderful month of June.  We have partied hard, welcomed new volunteers to Meet and Greet and Saturday Drop in and we are all a flutter with the excitement of Manchester Pride 2018.  For more on Volunteering, drive…I mean read…on

Hello and welcome to July’s Volunteer News.  What a month it has been! We have welcomed two new volunteers to the fold - Philip who will be meeting and greeting and Paul who is helping with our courses, Sessions and Events. They are both already getting stuck in and thoroughly enjoying their roles. We have partied and what a night that was.  We really hope everyone enjoyed themselves, I certainly did! ‘What else?’ I hear you cry.  Well, we finally have the new look Newsletter which we hope you enjoy.  This will give you a good overview of all of the goings on here at HQ and will also mean, for those of you who prefer to skim read our News, you can easily pick and choose what to read.

For more on Manchester Pride, volunteer roles, meetings and bins (yup it is really that exciting) read on… 

5 WEEKS UNTIL MANCHESTER PRIDE!

The Pride Planning meetings are well under way and the excitement is growing for this year’s Pride.  There has been some interesting chat about Queens in baskets and red shoes.  All will be revealed soon.  We recently welcomed our Pride Support Volunteer Jack and our Pride Support Intern Beatrice to the team so you will be hearing from them about volunteer shifts very soon.  Keep an eye out for a shift sign up form over the next couple of weeks.  In the meantime, take a look at ways you can get involved…

  
Parade Volunteering: Have you always fancied being in the actual Pride Parade on the Saturday and strutting your stuff for an extremely worthwhile cause?  This year we are looking for volunteers to fundraise whilst being part of the Parade on the Saturday.

Expo Stand: The Expo is running on the Saturday and Sunday day 11am - 5pm and is situated in the popular community space where organisations and community groups can exhibit their work.  If you fancy showcasing all of the wonderful services delivered by George House Trust then pop your name forward for this.

Candlelit Vigil: This takes place on the Monday evening and volunteers help by fundraising and selling candles making it a memorable atmosphere of remembrance and reflection.  Send me an email stating Vigil if this is something you would like to have more information about.

WANT TO TRY SOMETHING NEW?

Volunteering at George House Trust doesn’t have to mean sticking to the same shift and doing the same role.  We like to see our volunteer opportunities as dynamic and want you to know that you can dip your toes in other roles.  If you fancy trying something new, why not give it a go?  You could always do a taster shift to see if it’s the right role for you.

We are promoting our Volunteer Driver service at the moment and want to offer this to more service users.  It is such an important role, not only to ensure that our service users get to appointments but also to provide support and reassurance on journey.  Many people who benefit from our Volunteer Drivers would otherwise have to travel alone on multiple methods of public transport and when you are nervous about something these can be big barriers to attending.  If you are a car owner and fancy being that friendly face, check out the role description on the Volunteer Page of the website and give Rachel a shout.

There are lots of other volunteer opportunities being advertised currently.  Our Food Parcels on a Friday is in search of an extra pair of hands and our new Community Connections role is almost ready to launch.  All vacancies are advertised on the website so take a look and get on board.

WE ARE NOW BETTER TOGETHER IN CLINICS

As part of the Better Together Project we are providing peer mentoring at HIV clinics for the first time.  In the first year we saw 14 people, many of whom had not heard of George House Trust before, at The Hathersage Centre, Rochdale Sexual Health Centre and Ashton Sexual Health Centre.

In year two we will be launching the service at Bury, Withington and at North Manchester General Hospital.  This means we will be able to reach more people who either don’t know about us or have recently been diagnosed.
 
Our aim is to provide peer mentoring at every HIV clinic in Greater Manchester within the next five years.
 

BINS.  YES YOU READ IT, BINS

Mark and Steph have been quietly scurrying about the place organising our recycling.  Until a couple of weeks ago the only recycling facilities were upstairs at the kitchen where we recycle our food waste, plastics, glass, non-confidential paper and card.  It had been raised that the Meeting Room where lots of our Groups and Sessions take place, did not have any recycling provision.  I am sure everyone has seen those harrowing pictures of or marine life suffocating at the hands of our plastic consumption.  Even Manchester Picadilly has a water fountain to refill your bottle now which is music to my ears.  Platform 11 for anyone who is interested.  Anyway, we digress.  We now have recycling bins in the Meeting Room so we can do our bit and reduce waste to landfill.  There will be more discussion on this at the Courses, Sessions and Events Volunteer Team Meeting.

Our recent team meetings included 

• Pride Planning 
• Lead Volunteers

I am very much looking forward to getting into the swing of these quarterly team meetings and hope they will be a productive way to support each other with our roles and share the good, the bad and the ugly.

Our upcoming meetings for those who volunteer in the following roles are:

• Drivers 19th July 5:30pm
• Admin 1st August 1pm
• MGV 1st August 5:30pm 
• ASV 8th August 3:30pm

See you then!

AND FINALLY...

This newsletter is for you lot so if you have ideas for content or even want to try your hand at guest editing future editions then let me know.  We’d love to get some different voices in here.  Since GDPR we have been asking everyone to update their contact details.  Please keep an eye on your junk mail and make sure that everything is up to date, we would hate to lose touch with you.

Thanks everyone for another smashing month.  July is going to be a busy one so hold on to your seats and get ready for the ride (provided by our Volunteer Drivers of course).

Until next time.

Rachel.