Overview
Our volunteers assist with our Adults Social and Leisure programme, which supports our service users to access a wide range of social activities, which include but not limited to walks, theatre/museum trips, craft sessions and café meet ups.
Our Volunteers enable people with sight loss or people who have very little social interaction to feel comfortable and confident to attend our events. This could be by greeting and supporting them at an indoor/outdoor event. Many of our volunteers and service users build up a great rapport and a valuable and trusting relationship.
We also ask our volunteers to assist us with stuffing our quarterly newsletter, at our Head Office in Derby.
What you will do: To provide support during our social and leisure activities.
This could be assisting during a walk in a park, theatre/museum trip or to assist making refreshments at one of our events in a hired room.
Support service users and the Social Project Worker during indoor activities, for example: a craft or wellbeing session.
Support required interaction with people and sight guide people in/around the venue and location that we would be hiring/attending.
Times Expected: Ad-hoc volunteering as and when required at our monthly events. We have a seasonal event program running throughout the year.
The hours we require support range from: 2-3 hours per event, this could be for example, 9.30am -12.30pm or for an afternoon or evening for a theatre show, these hours would be more likely to range from 2-4 hours.
Skills you will need to have:
– Have a warm and friendly manner, be a good listener, positive and up-lifting
– Clear and empathic communicator
– Enjoy nature and being outdoors, visiting various locations
– Crafting skills come in handy for our craft sessions, but not essential.
– Light food and drink preparation
– We do not require you to drive anyone in your own car. If you can drive to events this is a bonus, however, it is not essential as we do aim to make all of our events accessible and close to public transport
Training and Support: We will give you visual impairment training and training specific to the tasks you undertake. A member of staff will support you throughout and will meet with you on a regular basis to see how things are going.
Expenses: We will reimburse your out-of-pocket expenses in line with our expenses policy.
Before you start: You will need to provide us with the names of two people who can provide a character reference for you.
Our office locations and times
Derby: 2A Wentworth House, Vernon Gate, Derby, DE1 1UR.
Our opening hours are Monday – Thursday 8.30am to 4.30pm.
Chesterfield: 1B St Margaret’s Drive, Chesterfield S40 4SY
Our opening hours are Monday – Thursday 8am to 4pm.
Contact:
If you would like to discuss this volunteer opportunity, then please contact us on enquiries@sightsupportderbyshire.org.uk or ring 01332292262.
This is an excellent opportunity to help enhance the quality of life for visually impaired people throughout Derbyshire.