Volunteer

Volunteering

Guiding in Dursley is run completely by volunteers who give their time freely, and often by the bucket load, so that the girls who attend the meetings, events, holidays and camps, enjoy themselves and get the most out of it.

Why volunteer?

We all know volunteering with Girlguiding is primarily for the girls, to give them the best guiding experience, to build their confidence and skills and to provide them with a range of opportunities and adventures. But volunteering works both ways and we know our volunteers are also after something in return.

Here are just some of the reasons people volunteer:

To give something back to the community
To gain skills and experience
To benefit their career by enhancing their CV
To be part of a team
To build confidence or self-esteem
To meet new people and make new friends
To access opportunities to socialise

A range of volunteer roles

We have wide range of roles that you can support with, there is something for everyone, regardless of your experience or available time. Volunteering doesn't have to be a weekly commitment, we have opportunities to support a group weekly, fortnightly, monthly or even just occasionally.

Here are just a few potential opportunities you could take on:

Leader or assistant leader

These volunteers take the lead in running a group. Each group usually has 2 or 3 leaders who work together so the responsibilities are shared. There is also less pressure if you need to miss a meeting because of personal circumstances (it happens to us all occasionally!). Leaders are given full training to ensure they're able to look after the girls and most of this is done during the regular meetings with minimal extra time commitment required.

Young leader or Duke of Edinburgh volunteer

These volunteers are aged 14-17 years and they are our leaders of the future. Young leaders can choose to work towards their young leader qualification and DofE volunteers are working on the DofE scheme volunteering element at bronze, silver or gold levels. Young volunteers support the volunteer team and build their own skills and confidence along the way.

Group helper

Girlguiding has recommended ratios of adults to children, dependent on the age group, so it is vital that groups have committed helpers. These volunteers can be as hands on as they would like to be, they can get involved in the planning and delivery of the activities or just turn up and be the extra pair of eyes, ears and hands at a meeting.

Occasional helper

Whether it's a trip to a show, a guiding event or a camp for several days, your assistance could be invaluable. Or it might be helping out within the regular meetings, but on a more occasional basis than the roles above. There are also 'outside the box' versions of this role such as being the shopper for a group, ensuring they have all the supplies they need in time for the meeting.

Treasurer

Keeping financial records is a legal requirement and it's really helpful to our leaders if there is a dedicated volunteer who can look after this element of the group. We have a very simple spreadsheet for recording the income and expenditure so it's really not a massively scary task. Provided you have the basics of arithmetic and some common sense for the banking forms you could carry out this role.

Finding the right role for you

This is just a small number of the volunteering opportunities we have available within the district. There are also options to help on a larger scale at county, region or even national level.

We believe in making sure that each of our fabulous volunteers is carrying out the role that is best for them, both in their skills and abilities, their time available and depending on what they're hoping to gain from their volunteering experience. With this in mind, we will discuss the volunteering opportunities with any new enquiry and help and support them into the right role for them.

We also keep in touch with all our volunteers to ensure they're still happy in their role. We know circumstances change and so the role a volunteer carries out may also need to change. We aim to work with our volunteers throughout their journey with us.

There's no such thing as the wrong volunteer, just the right volunteer in the wrong role.

Join us

To register to volunteer in any of the roles mentioned, or simply to chat to one of the team and find out more, please follow the link to the national Girlguiding website where you can register your interest. Your enquiry will then be passed on to our district team and one of the volunteers will be in touch.