June 3, 2026 • 20 mins
It's volunteers week! (https://volunteersweek.org/)
Volunteering is a great way to build new skills, grow your confidence, and develop qualities employers really look for. It also gives you something meaningful to talk about in interviews - plus, it can be genuinely rewarding along the way.
This week, Amelia shares her journey with volunteering - from getting involved at university with her students’ union and societies to where she is today.
She shares where to find volunteering opportunities, how to showcase your experience on your CV and LinkedIn, and what volunteering really looks like in terms of time commitment.
Check out the charities Amelia volunteers with:
Just Like Us: https://justlikeus.org/
The Refugee Council: https://www.refugeecouncil.org.uk/
York Museums Trust: https://www.yorkmuseumstrust.org.uk/
Zooniverse: https://www.zooniverse.org/
Samaritans: https://www.samaritans.org/support-us/volunteer/
Thinking about volunteering abroad? Learn more here: https://bit.ly/4fficmy
Thinking about volunteering with animals? Learn more here: https://bit.ly/4u4naGq
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(00:00):
You shouldn't be afraid.
(00:01):
First of all
I feel like a lot of people nowadaysget very worried about being a nuisance.
I can't relate. I'm a professional one.
Hello and welcome back to FutureYou, the podcast
brought to you by Prospects.
I'm your host, Emily Slade.My name is Amelia.
I am stakeholdergovernance and risk analysis at Jisc.
So you're here today to talk aboutthe benefits of volunteering.
(00:24):
So how what volunteeringhave you done in the past?
Lots.
So currently, I'm an ambassadorfor a charity called Just Like Us,
which go into schools and talk about whatit's like growing up LGBT plus,
which with the
aim of,like, reducing discrimination in schools.
(00:45):
So obviously June very busy.
We've got four in June, which is exciting.
I also,
do volunteering with the Refugee Council.
They have these people called Befriend
Us, who basically wants, refugeefamily have moved in.
They get assigned a personthat lives in the area that knows the area
(01:06):
to show them thingslike what is a good place to get a coffee
rather than, you know, like the paid staffthat do
all the let's get you into a GPin a school and a dentist.
I don't do that.
I just show them nice things,take them to the museum.
But it's it's really nicebecause you then get to like,
honestly butcher their languagea little bit.
(01:27):
I'll tell you for coffee.
And you got to teach them funEnglish words and sayings and idioms.
And then finally, I teach Sunday school,which is a lot of fun.
Relatively new.
So I currently
have 29 littles,all under the age of seven
that I teach Sunday schoolto just half an hour on a Sunday.
(01:49):
And they are hilarious.
They say some really funny things.
So there's lots of different ways,and I try and do like
multiple, as you can probably tell,but none that are very time consuming.
I'm just going to say, but they seem to beat different levels as well.
Like, yeah,just sort of like one could come a day,
but I assume for Sunday schoolyou needed to get like paperwork in order.
(02:09):
Yeah, lots of DBS checks and trainingin all three
to be honest, because in all three of themI'm working with vulnerable people.
So I'm, like, drowning in DBSchecks at my house at the moment.
But I've done I've done stuffthat isn't really related to people.
So I used to do, volunteeringfor the York Museums Trust.
I was doing exhibition design,which was very fun, very cool.
(02:32):
What drives you toto do all of this volunteering,
or has it been new,something that your family did a lot?
No, not reallylike how you want to spend your time.
I just get bored.
You know there’s like a lot of television.
I think it's more about, like.
There's so many different thingsin the world that are worrying,
(02:53):
and it often feels like you're
a little bit powerlessto do anything about it because, you know,
you can't go like to another countryand fix their problems, right?
You can't even fix the onesin this country half the time.
But you can do little things every daythat make a difference.
So like, for example,I was really distressed
by the way that people talk about transpeople in the media, for example.
(03:17):
And I was like, I can't go out thereand fix transphobia in a day,
but I can go into a schooland explain what transphobia is wrong,
and I might not fix the whole country,but those 100 kids that I'm talking to,
maybe five of them go, Maybe I shouldn't say that
on Instagram or TikTok or whateverthey're doing it on, and it does matter.
(03:39):
Like the feedbackthat I've had has always been really good.
I had one kid that laughedall the way through and I was like,
oh no, that's awful.
And then afterwards he was like,I was just so nervous
because I'd never met like,anyone who was LGBT before.
And I don't know why.
I started laughing and I couldn't stop.
And I was like,well, you're not mocking me.
(03:59):
So it's a lot like that.
I think there's also an element of,
You don't get very much time, do you?
Like, I don't want to get. Really?
Did you feel like you got.
You got, like, make it worth it.
You got to make it worth it.
And also like cheekily, when I was in uni,a lot of it was just for me.
(04:23):
Like I found that the olderI got, the more intentional it becomes.
Yeah, of like, I'm choosing thingsbecause I'm passionate about them
and I want to make that differencein the world, even if it's really small.
Like sayingI'll babysit 29 seven year olds.
But like when I was in
(04:45):
uni, it was a lot of like,oh, I haven't gotten an internship
that I need for proving thatI want to do the job that I want to do.
So I need to go volunteerto get the experience.
So it's very interesting,like the difference
between what I was doing five years agoand what I'm doing now.
Yeah, 100%.
And some may hear that and think,oh God, it's like unpaid
(05:05):
labor, essentially,in order to get to a point.
But everything that you're doing,especially currently
sounds incredibly rewarding. Yeah.
And did it essentially work
volunteering in place of,like, an internship?
Yeah, like when I was in first year, I was
(05:25):
of uni. Sorry.
I was trying desperatelyto get a job, as all people do,
and I just didn't get one.
I applied for, like,
I was applying for thingsin, like, the Department of Biology.
I had a history degree.I was never going to get there.
And I ended up at a retail job,which was perfectly fine.
It paid the bills,which is what I needed it to do,
(05:46):
but I just didn't feel very fulfilled But
when I was doing the volunteering,
it was like something I actually wanted todo, and I actually cared about.
I when I came to the job interviewat Jyske, I was really expecting them
to ask me about skills I picked up during,like the job I'd had at the student
union or stuff I'd done during my degree,and they had really honed in on.
(06:08):
I'd won this award
for volunteering for my university,and they were like, tell us about this.
Tell us how you got that award.
Who what were you doing?
And it's like what I was entertaining onWednesday night, like,
And so do you.
Put all of your volunteering experienceon your CV or do you
tailor specific volunteering thingsto specific committees?
(06:32):
Yeah, I think it's more tailored.
Like for example, for desk.
I didn't put down all of the uni societiesI was in because no one cared.
I put down the one I was president forbecause I was president,
and I put down the one that I thoughtwas most relevant to this job,
which is like the treasurer.
So I do a lot of,like, work with the finance team at Jess.
(06:54):
So I was like, I understand money.
I had also worked in financeat the student union,
so I should have just used thatin hindsight.
I think when you give, like, reams,
reams of stuff on your CVjust tends to stress people out.
So I only tend to put 1 or 2, and it justdepends on what I'm applying for.
So it's that sort of thing.
(07:15):
But I tend to put downmore about the impact
or the skill that I've gotten, ratherthan where I got it from.
Yeah.
And I think it also dependson how long I've been that, like
I volunteered for, just,like close for quite a long time.
I'm still volunteeringwith them. It's been
over two years now, so I put them on a CVwhere I was.
I wouldn't put down like
(07:35):
a university societywhere I was secretary for seven months.
Yeah.Because it shows a great commitment.
And I feel like a lot of the timethat's what employers are looking for.
what advice
would you have for peoplethat have never volunteered
(07:56):
and I don't even know what to start.
I think you shouldn't be afraid.
First of all
I feel like a lot of people nowadaysget very worried about being a nuisance.
I can't relate. I'm a professional one.
So I think there's that element of.
If you don't know where to start, startby just asking around.
(08:18):
Like I had never
actually heard of the Refugee Counciluntil I was volunteering with them.
And it was, I want to work with refugees.
Let's Google placesyou can work with refugees.
And that's often the way to do it.
Like if you're really passionate about.
Cause the best wayjust to find out where to volunteer is
(08:41):
Google what you're caring aboutand then volunteering. So,
like, I don't know if you'rereally passionate about the environment.
There's so many different optionsand you might not
want to be involved in all of them.
But that's often the way to do it.
The othergood thing you can do is, often city
and town councilshave their own volunteering boards.
(09:04):
So for example, in York we have York CVS,
which basically has like a list of trusteeships
and places that are lookingfor volunteers in the area.
So if you don't want to go for those big,you know, amnesty,
Greenpeace or whatever. You don't have to.
There's all these smaller charitiesthat still appreciate support.
And I think that that'sthe big way is once you get started,
(09:25):
it's actually quite easybecause a lot of people who volunteer
don't just volunteer in one place,so you can kind of get passed around.
If you're religious.
Also, don't know if I'm allowedto say this, but if you're religious,
your church always wants people,your mosque, your they always need
welcome as greeters, cleaners, floristslike all of these things.
(09:46):
I didn't realize how many volunteerspop up that sort of build and like, yeah,
I, I'm obviouslychilling out in children's liturgy,
but every now and then it would be like,hi, can you go talk to an old person
that's in the house by themselves becausethey can't make it to church anymore?
And those sorts of thingsare always in newsletters.
And when they do things like soupkitchens or food pantry donations,
(10:10):
those are thingsyou don't have to be religious to join in.
Foodbanks number one place to go.
Volunteer.
Yeah.
Also constantly looking for donations.
If you have tins of beans in yourhouse, please go donate them.
But even
things like soap, shampoo,a lot of it is such
(10:30):
like you can build it in really easilyinto your day to day life.
Like, I was going to ask,how does it impact?
Like, what does your week look like?
It looks like just spread acrossquite a few organizations.
So are you talking aboutlike weekly nightly commitments?
No, I think it depends.
So Just Like Us is pretty
(10:51):
calm most of the year.
Obviously don't do anything in the summerbecause there's no schools.
Yeah.
So they have like a monthly you sign upand then they'll assign to you.
So for example,
I signed up for 12 in June, which I thinkwas a bit over the top for me.
And I'm glad that they cut me off.
They only gave me four.
They were like,we need other people to do stuff.
(11:15):
And they're obviously
great because they send you,like, postcards and stickers and things.
When you've done to a certain number,which is really lovely.
Like,it would be like a Tuesday afternoon.
Yeah.
So, like, I tend to pick the onesthat start before my working hours.
So I do like the 8 to 830.
And then obviously log in into workor during my lunch hour,
(11:37):
those at times get hungryif I do that too often.
Whereas like the Refugee Council
because obviously there's not a permanentinflux of people all the time,
you can be like,I've not had anyone for like five months.
And then you get like a weekly slotfor like six weeks,
for example, or 12 or however manythat they think that you'll need.
(12:00):
And that's like it afternoon and then,
Sunday schools every Sunday.
Unless I don't, I'm not on the Bursabecause they don't shout as well.
Yeah.
Like a lot of places need volunteersconstantly because they don't
want to ask the same personto do the same thing every time.
Right.
And it's good to shake it up.
(12:22):
Give other people new opportunities.
Obviously things like children's landuse and constraints,
like you need multiple peoplebecause of safeguarding risk.
So we just like codes actuallycan't just send one person into a school.
So they're always in pairs.
So it doesn't actually impact too muchmy regular week.
I'll have weeks where they're busyand weeks where they're not.
(12:45):
Same as anything else.
And that's really nice because it means
I can kind of plan around them,but I can also make them plan around me.
I feel like a lot of peopleget very stressed about commitment level.
They go, oh,I only have one week a month or whatever.
That's fine.
That's kind of the point.
So it just depends on what you're doing.
(13:06):
I feel like if you're willingto give like one day a month, that's
more than enough.
A lot of the time.
Unless you're in a uni society.
Yeah. They demand every meeting
all the time.
Yeah.
Amazing.
(13:27):
I don't know how to word thiswithout sounding awful
unless I'm a nice person.
I don't think it's necessarilya bad thing to do it for your CV.
Like there's the,there's the famous quote of like,
oh, I can't build the orphanagebecause I'm doing it for selfish reasons.
And it's like, the orphans don't care.
They just want an orphanage.
Like, people are not going to careif you're doing it
(13:49):
because you want to pick up your CV,because you're still doing the calls.
Yeah, but I think it does helpif you care about the cause.
Like you'll probably have a better timeif you care about it.
You'll definitely have a better timeand you'll put in more effort.
Yeah.
It's as simple as that.
But I don't think it's a make or break.
If you don't volunteer, you'renever going to get a job sort of scenario.
(14:12):
Yeah. I think the
depending on what you're doing,it could actually
be less helpfulbecause you're just losing time
that you could be spendingapplying or whatever.
But if you're going into certainindustries, it's
kind of almost a requirement nowadays.
So for example, like
I studied history, most people who studyhistory want to go into heritage.
(14:33):
It's very difficult to get a museum jobthat's
of any kind, really, unless you've gotthat sort of volunteering experience,
because there's so few jobsand so many job
graduates. Yeah.
So all of the friends that I havewho have like archeological or heritage
jobs, they've also got so much workexperience and most of thoughts on paid,
(14:57):
which we go into widerclassism discussions on that.
But I don't think we've got time.
Whereas the friends that I havethat have gone into,
like myself into other industries,
it's just partly because they don'thave any of the volunteering experience
for quiet.
You you're based in, like, York.
Which is quite a big city,very historical.
(15:18):
There's a lot of opportunities as well.
What if you're based in, like,a small village somewhere
and your opportunitiesof volunteering are, like, lacking?
Can you do anything online? Yeah.
So I oh my goodness.
I've just remembered that I doa completely separate volunteering piece,
but well, first of all, just like usdoes it online as well.
(15:39):
Oh, so you could do it online.
But also like there'sthere's groups like Zooniverse.
I don't know if you've heard of them.
They're amazing.
I'm just going to pluck them then.
So they are, a really goodif you're into humanities or sciences.
So they do transcription servicesand you can volunteer as a transcriber.
(16:00):
So for example, I spend maybe 18
hours once, which by the way,you can just do like ten minutes.
They don't mind. I was a bit over the top.
Transcribing, honestly
transcribing World War Two draft notices.
So, obviously not typedbecause they're from, like the 30s.
(16:20):
They were the early. Yes.
And you like, okay,you get given a clump of them,
you can do them one at a time.
So if you just want to do oneto test it out and then disappear
and never be seen again,that's technically volunteering.
I did 3500 and notI don't know why I did that.
Alexander Hamilton was like an Alexanderwrote the other four.
(16:41):
It's not.
I did get
I didhave to apologize to one once, though,
because I didn't read
the handwriting correctlyand just did it wrong,
and they had to bring a differenttranscriber in.
But, they do all sorts.
So there loads of museums, Birmingham Museums trusted that recently.
But they're mostly onesin the US and Canada.
(17:01):
I spent a lot of timewith the University of Minnesota.
Never been in Minnesota.
But they do like,obviously things like the draft notices,
but they also do things like, the plants
that botanicals, so they'll have, like a picture of a pond.
And then they've got the little bitat the bottom, it says,
and you can transcribe that.
And it's so easy to do. Yeah.
(17:24):
And it's actually really helpful for
if you do want to gointo certain industries
like if you're really into sort of labwork, archiving, archeology also stuff.
Great. It's kind of built in.
But also it's just helpfulif you're someone that's not massively
technologically confident,you can practice your typing.
You can practice your abilityto read other people's work.
(17:45):
Yeah. It sounds quite flexible as well.
Super flexible.
It's it's really fun as well.
Like, because there'sso many different projects on there.
Like, because there'sso many different projects on there.
So if you're really not interested in one,you can just move on to another.
I, some of them are also like doing ifyou're really into the AI thing right now.
I'm not.
But But they have onewhere they're teaching AI
to read storybooks,which I do think is cool, to be honest.
(18:09):
So that they can read them to children.
You could volunteer in a hospitalto read to kids.
Oh, I love you. If you. Yeah.
Also, if you're, like, in a rural area,there's loads of other things,
like, does,
you know, like, use with the babies, like,then tiny, tiny baby stuff.
Premature.
If you can knit or crochetor anything like that, you can send,
(18:32):
your cardigans,your blankets, whatever, to any hospital.
And they will take them for youfor the babies,
which I think is very cool, thoughyou should check that you mate
when it's the right place, because I didsend the cardigan to the wrong place once
and they were grateful for the cardigan,but very confused and sent it back.
(18:53):
But there's all sorts of stuff like that.
The Samaritansyou can do from home as well.
Is that like, you're on the call center?
Yeah. Yeah.
And now,obviously they all have the best thing
about volunteering as wellis that they always add
like, additional training and stuff.
I was going to say, do you, I assume,assumed that you would have to go to like,
you'd have to commit to some training 100%and probably also DBS.
(19:16):
Yeah.
Which is not a bad thing to have, I don’t think.
No it’s handy.
It’s useful to have one in your back pocket.
On the training's opportunity.
So what was really fun?
I, I did one recently.
Not with the smartphones.
I'm not with the Samaritans.
I did one about child safeguarding and,
specifically how we protect childrenwho don't speak English.
(19:40):
Who when you don'tshare our language of them, basically.
Which is really interesting.
You never even think about a scenario
where the child can't tell youwhat's wrong until you're trained on it.
And there's some really interesting onesat the moment about AI
and how you safeguard people in publicwhen there's, you know, things
like the rayban glasses that take photosand stuff But the training got you.
(20:02):
This is a really strong,
what you can
do, even if you think that you're far awayfrom everything.
It's just about knowing where to look,
and knowing who to talk to.
Brilliant.
Thank you so much foryour time today. No worries.
You shouldn't be afraid.
(00:01):
First of all
I feel like a lot of people nowadaysget very worried about being a nuisance.
I can't relate. I'm a professional one.
Hello and welcome back to FutureYou, the podcast
brought to you by Prospects.
I'm your host, Emily Slade.My name is Amelia.
I am stakeholdergovernance and risk analysis at Jisc.
So you're here today to talk aboutthe benefits of volunteering.
(00:24):
So how what volunteeringhave you done in the past?
Lots.
So currently, I'm an ambassadorfor a charity called Just Like Us,
which go into schools and talk about whatit's like growing up LGBT plus,
which with the
aim of,like, reducing discrimination in schools.
(00:45):
So obviously June very busy.
We've got four in June, which is exciting.
I also,
do volunteering with the Refugee Council.
They have these people called Befriend
Us, who basically wants, refugeefamily have moved in.
They get assigned a personthat lives in the area that knows the area
(01:06):
to show them thingslike what is a good place to get a coffee
rather than, you know, like the paid staffthat do
all the let's get you into a GPin a school and a dentist.
I don't do that.
I just show them nice things,take them to the museum.
But it's it's really nicebecause you then get to like,
honestly butcher their languagea little bit.
(01:27):
I'll tell you for coffee.
And you got to teach them funEnglish words and sayings and idioms.
And then finally, I teach Sunday school,which is a lot of fun.
Relatively new.
So I currently
have 29 littles,all under the age of seven
that I teach Sunday schoolto just half an hour on a Sunday.
(01:49):
And they are hilarious.
They say some really funny things.
So there's lots of different ways,and I try and do like
multiple, as you can probably tell,but none that are very time consuming.
I'm just going to say, but they seem to beat different levels as well.
Like, yeah,just sort of like one could come a day,
but I assume for Sunday schoolyou needed to get like paperwork in order.
(02:09):
Yeah, lots of DBS checks and trainingin all three
to be honest, because in all three of themI'm working with vulnerable people.
So I'm, like, drowning in DBSchecks at my house at the moment.
But I've done I've done stuffthat isn't really related to people.
So I used to do, volunteeringfor the York Museums Trust.
I was doing exhibition design,which was very fun, very cool.
(02:32):
What drives you toto do all of this volunteering,
or has it been new,something that your family did a lot?
No, not reallylike how you want to spend your time.
I just get bored.
You know there’s like a lot of television.
I think it's more about, like.
There's so many different thingsin the world that are worrying,
(02:53):
and it often feels like you're
a little bit powerlessto do anything about it because, you know,
you can't go like to another countryand fix their problems, right?
You can't even fix the onesin this country half the time.
But you can do little things every daythat make a difference.
So like, for example,I was really distressed
by the way that people talk about transpeople in the media, for example.
(03:17):
And I was like, I can't go out thereand fix transphobia in a day,
but I can go into a schooland explain what transphobia is wrong,
and I might not fix the whole country,but those 100 kids that I'm talking to,
maybe five of them go, Maybe I shouldn't say that
on Instagram or TikTok or whateverthey're doing it on, and it does matter.
(03:39):
Like the feedbackthat I've had has always been really good.
I had one kid that laughedall the way through and I was like,
oh no, that's awful.
And then afterwards he was like,I was just so nervous
because I'd never met like,anyone who was LGBT before.
And I don't know why.
I started laughing and I couldn't stop.
And I was like,well, you're not mocking me.
(03:59):
So it's a lot like that.
I think there's also an element of,
You don't get very much time, do you?
Like, I don't want to get. Really?
Did you feel like you got.
You got, like, make it worth it.
You got to make it worth it.
And also like cheekily, when I was in uni,a lot of it was just for me.
(04:23):
Like I found that the olderI got, the more intentional it becomes.
Yeah, of like, I'm choosing thingsbecause I'm passionate about them
and I want to make that differencein the world, even if it's really small.
Like sayingI'll babysit 29 seven year olds.
But like when I was in
(04:45):
uni, it was a lot of like,oh, I haven't gotten an internship
that I need for proving thatI want to do the job that I want to do.
So I need to go volunteerto get the experience.
So it's very interesting,like the difference
between what I was doing five years agoand what I'm doing now.
Yeah, 100%.
And some may hear that and think,oh God, it's like unpaid
(05:05):
labor, essentially,in order to get to a point.
But everything that you're doing,especially currently
sounds incredibly rewarding. Yeah.
And did it essentially work
volunteering in place of,like, an internship?
Yeah, like when I was in first year, I was
(05:25):
of uni. Sorry.
I was trying desperatelyto get a job, as all people do,
and I just didn't get one.
I applied for, like,
I was applying for thingsin, like, the Department of Biology.
I had a history degree.I was never going to get there.
And I ended up at a retail job,which was perfectly fine.
It paid the bills,which is what I needed it to do,
(05:46):
but I just didn't feel very fulfilled But
when I was doing the volunteering,
it was like something I actually wanted todo, and I actually cared about.
I when I came to the job interviewat Jyske, I was really expecting them
to ask me about skills I picked up during,like the job I'd had at the student
union or stuff I'd done during my degree,and they had really honed in on.
(06:08):
I'd won this award
for volunteering for my university,and they were like, tell us about this.
Tell us how you got that award.
Who what were you doing?
And it's like what I was entertaining onWednesday night, like,
And so do you.
Put all of your volunteering experienceon your CV or do you
tailor specific volunteering thingsto specific committees?
(06:32):
Yeah, I think it's more tailored.
Like for example, for desk.
I didn't put down all of the uni societiesI was in because no one cared.
I put down the one I was president forbecause I was president,
and I put down the one that I thoughtwas most relevant to this job,
which is like the treasurer.
So I do a lot of,like, work with the finance team at Jess.
(06:54):
So I was like, I understand money.
I had also worked in financeat the student union,
so I should have just used thatin hindsight.
I think when you give, like, reams,
reams of stuff on your CVjust tends to stress people out.
So I only tend to put 1 or 2, and it justdepends on what I'm applying for.
So it's that sort of thing.
(07:15):
But I tend to put downmore about the impact
or the skill that I've gotten, ratherthan where I got it from.
Yeah.
And I think it also dependson how long I've been that, like
I volunteered for, just,like close for quite a long time.
I'm still volunteeringwith them. It's been
over two years now, so I put them on a CVwhere I was.
I wouldn't put down like
(07:35):
a university societywhere I was secretary for seven months.
Yeah.Because it shows a great commitment.
And I feel like a lot of the timethat's what employers are looking for.
what advice
would you have for peoplethat have never volunteered
(07:56):
and I don't even know what to start.
I think you shouldn't be afraid.
First of all
I feel like a lot of people nowadaysget very worried about being a nuisance.
I can't relate. I'm a professional one.
So I think there's that element of.
If you don't know where to start, startby just asking around.
(08:18):
Like I had never
actually heard of the Refugee Counciluntil I was volunteering with them.
And it was, I want to work with refugees.
Let's Google placesyou can work with refugees.
And that's often the way to do it.
Like if you're really passionate about.
Cause the best wayjust to find out where to volunteer is
(08:41):
Google what you're caring aboutand then volunteering. So,
like, I don't know if you'rereally passionate about the environment.
There's so many different optionsand you might not
want to be involved in all of them.
But that's often the way to do it.
The othergood thing you can do is, often city
and town councilshave their own volunteering boards.
(09:04):
So for example, in York we have York CVS,
which basically has like a list of trusteeships
and places that are lookingfor volunteers in the area.
So if you don't want to go for those big,you know, amnesty,
Greenpeace or whatever. You don't have to.
There's all these smaller charitiesthat still appreciate support.
And I think that that'sthe big way is once you get started,
(09:25):
it's actually quite easybecause a lot of people who volunteer
don't just volunteer in one place,so you can kind of get passed around.
If you're religious.
Also, don't know if I'm allowedto say this, but if you're religious,
your church always wants people,your mosque, your they always need
welcome as greeters, cleaners, floristslike all of these things.
(09:46):
I didn't realize how many volunteerspop up that sort of build and like, yeah,
I, I'm obviouslychilling out in children's liturgy,
but every now and then it would be like,hi, can you go talk to an old person
that's in the house by themselves becausethey can't make it to church anymore?
And those sorts of thingsare always in newsletters.
And when they do things like soupkitchens or food pantry donations,
(10:10):
those are thingsyou don't have to be religious to join in.
Foodbanks number one place to go.
Volunteer.
Yeah.
Also constantly looking for donations.
If you have tins of beans in yourhouse, please go donate them.
But even
things like soap, shampoo,a lot of it is such
(10:30):
like you can build it in really easilyinto your day to day life.
Like, I was going to ask,how does it impact?
Like, what does your week look like?
It looks like just spread acrossquite a few organizations.
So are you talking aboutlike weekly nightly commitments?
No, I think it depends.
So Just Like Us is pretty
(10:51):
calm most of the year.
Obviously don't do anything in the summerbecause there's no schools.
Yeah.
So they have like a monthly you sign upand then they'll assign to you.
So for example,
I signed up for 12 in June, which I thinkwas a bit over the top for me.
And I'm glad that they cut me off.
They only gave me four.
They were like,we need other people to do stuff.
(11:15):
And they're obviously
great because they send you,like, postcards and stickers and things.
When you've done to a certain number,which is really lovely.
Like,it would be like a Tuesday afternoon.
Yeah.
So, like, I tend to pick the onesthat start before my working hours.
So I do like the 8 to 830.
And then obviously log in into workor during my lunch hour,
(11:37):
those at times get hungryif I do that too often.
Whereas like the Refugee Council
because obviously there's not a permanentinflux of people all the time,
you can be like,I've not had anyone for like five months.
And then you get like a weekly slotfor like six weeks,
for example, or 12 or however manythat they think that you'll need.
(12:00):
And that's like it afternoon and then,
Sunday schools every Sunday.
Unless I don't, I'm not on the Bursabecause they don't shout as well.
Yeah.
Like a lot of places need volunteersconstantly because they don't
want to ask the same personto do the same thing every time.
Right.
And it's good to shake it up.
(12:22):
Give other people new opportunities.
Obviously things like children's landuse and constraints,
like you need multiple peoplebecause of safeguarding risk.
So we just like codes actuallycan't just send one person into a school.
So they're always in pairs.
So it doesn't actually impact too muchmy regular week.
I'll have weeks where they're busyand weeks where they're not.
(12:45):
Same as anything else.
And that's really nice because it means
I can kind of plan around them,but I can also make them plan around me.
I feel like a lot of peopleget very stressed about commitment level.
They go, oh,I only have one week a month or whatever.
That's fine.
That's kind of the point.
So it just depends on what you're doing.
(13:06):
I feel like if you're willingto give like one day a month, that's
more than enough.
A lot of the time.
Unless you're in a uni society.
Yeah. They demand every meeting
all the time.
Yeah.
Amazing.
(13:27):
I don't know how to word thiswithout sounding awful
unless I'm a nice person.
I don't think it's necessarilya bad thing to do it for your CV.
Like there's the,there's the famous quote of like,
oh, I can't build the orphanagebecause I'm doing it for selfish reasons.
And it's like, the orphans don't care.
They just want an orphanage.
Like, people are not going to careif you're doing it
(13:49):
because you want to pick up your CV,because you're still doing the calls.
Yeah, but I think it does helpif you care about the cause.
Like you'll probably have a better timeif you care about it.
You'll definitely have a better timeand you'll put in more effort.
Yeah.
It's as simple as that.
But I don't think it's a make or break.
If you don't volunteer, you'renever going to get a job sort of scenario.
(14:12):
Yeah. I think the
depending on what you're doing,it could actually
be less helpfulbecause you're just losing time
that you could be spendingapplying or whatever.
But if you're going into certainindustries, it's
kind of almost a requirement nowadays.
So for example, like
I studied history, most people who studyhistory want to go into heritage.
(14:33):
It's very difficult to get a museum jobthat's
of any kind, really, unless you've gotthat sort of volunteering experience,
because there's so few jobsand so many job
graduates. Yeah.
So all of the friends that I havewho have like archeological or heritage
jobs, they've also got so much workexperience and most of thoughts on paid,
(14:57):
which we go into widerclassism discussions on that.
But I don't think we've got time.
Whereas the friends that I havethat have gone into,
like myself into other industries,
it's just partly because they don'thave any of the volunteering experience
for quiet.
You you're based in, like, York.
Which is quite a big city,very historical.
(15:18):
There's a lot of opportunities as well.
What if you're based in, like,a small village somewhere
and your opportunitiesof volunteering are, like, lacking?
Can you do anything online? Yeah.
So I oh my goodness.
I've just remembered that I doa completely separate volunteering piece,
but well, first of all, just like usdoes it online as well.
(15:39):
Oh, so you could do it online.
But also like there'sthere's groups like Zooniverse.
I don't know if you've heard of them.
They're amazing.
I'm just going to pluck them then.
So they are, a really goodif you're into humanities or sciences.
So they do transcription servicesand you can volunteer as a transcriber.
(16:00):
So for example, I spend maybe 18
hours once, which by the way,you can just do like ten minutes.
They don't mind. I was a bit over the top.
Transcribing, honestly
transcribing World War Two draft notices.
So, obviously not typedbecause they're from, like the 30s.
(16:20):
They were the early. Yes.
And you like, okay,you get given a clump of them,
you can do them one at a time.
So if you just want to do oneto test it out and then disappear
and never be seen again,that's technically volunteering.
I did 3500 and notI don't know why I did that.
Alexander Hamilton was like an Alexanderwrote the other four.
(16:41):
It's not.
I did get
I didhave to apologize to one once, though,
because I didn't read
the handwriting correctlyand just did it wrong,
and they had to bring a differenttranscriber in.
But, they do all sorts.
So there loads of museums, Birmingham Museums trusted that recently.
But they're mostly onesin the US and Canada.
(17:01):
I spent a lot of timewith the University of Minnesota.
Never been in Minnesota.
But they do like,obviously things like the draft notices,
but they also do things like, the plants
that botanicals, so they'll have, like a picture of a pond.
And then they've got the little bitat the bottom, it says,
and you can transcribe that.
And it's so easy to do. Yeah.
(17:24):
And it's actually really helpful for
if you do want to gointo certain industries
like if you're really into sort of labwork, archiving, archeology also stuff.
Great. It's kind of built in.
But also it's just helpfulif you're someone that's not massively
technologically confident,you can practice your typing.
You can practice your abilityto read other people's work.
(17:45):
Yeah. It sounds quite flexible as well.
Super flexible.
It's it's really fun as well.
Like, because there'sso many different projects on there.
Like, because there'sso many different projects on there.
So if you're really not interested in one,you can just move on to another.
I, some of them are also like doing ifyou're really into the AI thing right now.
I'm not.
But But they have onewhere they're teaching AI
to read storybooks,which I do think is cool, to be honest.
(18:09):
So that they can read them to children.
You could volunteer in a hospitalto read to kids.
Oh, I love you. If you. Yeah.
Also, if you're, like, in a rural area,there's loads of other things,
like, does,
you know, like, use with the babies, like,then tiny, tiny baby stuff.
Premature.
If you can knit or crochetor anything like that, you can send,
(18:32):
your cardigans,your blankets, whatever, to any hospital.
And they will take them for youfor the babies,
which I think is very cool, thoughyou should check that you mate
when it's the right place, because I didsend the cardigan to the wrong place once
and they were grateful for the cardigan,but very confused and sent it back.
(18:53):
But there's all sorts of stuff like that.
The Samaritansyou can do from home as well.
Is that like, you're on the call center?
Yeah. Yeah.
And now,obviously they all have the best thing
about volunteering as wellis that they always add
like, additional training and stuff.
I was going to say, do you, I assume,assumed that you would have to go to like,
you'd have to commit to some training 100%and probably also DBS.
(19:16):
Yeah.
Which is not a bad thing to have, I don’t think.
No it’s handy.
It’s useful to have one in your back pocket.
On the training's opportunity.
So what was really fun?
I, I did one recently.
Not with the smartphones.
I'm not with the Samaritans.
I did one about child safeguarding and,
specifically how we protect childrenwho don't speak English.
(19:40):
Who when you don'tshare our language of them, basically.
Which is really interesting.
You never even think about a scenario
where the child can't tell youwhat's wrong until you're trained on it.
And there's some really interesting onesat the moment about AI
and how you safeguard people in publicwhen there's, you know, things
like the rayban glasses that take photosand stuff But the training got you.
(20:02):
This is a really strong,
what you can
do, even if you think that you're far awayfrom everything.
It's just about knowing where to look,
and knowing who to talk to.
Brilliant.
Thank you so much foryour time today. No worries.
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