Donate Your Skills – Helping you AND your Community

Do you have a few spare hours each month to donate to a local voluntary organisation or community group? If so, Volunteer Centre South Bedfordshire would love to hear from you as they are launching a new trustee recruitment campaign. Trustees ensure that organisations are well run and remain true to their vision - they make a huge difference to its success and impact. Currently, the Volunteer Centre has 58 opportunities for trustees at 39 different organisations in South Bedfordshire. Delivering a broad range of services to people of all ages, these organisations deal with disability, health and social care issues, include sports clubs, environmental groups and community centres.

Trusteeship is a great way to make a significant difference to a charity or cause that you care about. Trustees come from many different walks of life, some have specialist business knowledge or life experience, others a passion for the cause. Collectively, they are known as the board or committee. Being a trustee is a respected and responsible role, it is also a brilliant route to developing new skills, gaining more experience, meeting new people and getting involved with new networks. Examples of areas where organisations need your time are: marketing and PR, human resources, law, finance, administration and premises.

Karin Laljani, a trustee at Voluntary and Community Action says “It’s a two way thing. I help the charity but I also take back knowledge that helps me in my paid role. I work on my company’s sustainability policies, and my trustee role helps educate me on related matters. Working with communities is an increasingly important issue for businesses as well.”

All 58 trustee vacancies and many more volunteering opportunities are listed on the www.do-it.org.uk website. Lucy or Rebecca at Volunteer Centre South Bedfordshire would be glad to talk you through the options or to arrange to drop in for an informal chat, call 01525 850559 or email volunteer@action-centralbeds.org.uk  

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Note to editors:

1. Below is a list of 39 organisations with trustee opportunities registered with the Volunteer Centre:

1. Advocacy Alliance
2. Alzheimer’s Society
3. Autism Bedfordshire
4. Barton Village Hall
5. Bedfordshire Advocacy Service for Older People
6. Bedfordshire and Luton Community Foundation
7. Bedfordshire and Luton Geology Group
8. Bedfordshire and Luton Mind
9. Bedfordshire County Council Education Department
   (Governors for schools across the region)
10. Brewers Middle School
11. Campaign to Protect Rural England
12. Cancer Research UK
13. Disability Resource Centre
14. Dunstable and District Disabled Sports
15. Dunstable Mencap
16. Ford End Watermill Society
17. Girlguiding Bedfordshire
18. Hadrian Lower School
19. Heath and Reach Sports Association
20. Heathwood Lower School
21. Hillcrest School
22. Hockliffe Lower School
23. Home-Start South Bedfordshire
24. Hospice at Home Volunteers (Leighton Buzzard
25. Kidsout
26. Leighton-Linslade Access for All
27. Leighton-Linslade Citizens Advice Bureau
28. Leighton-Linslade Public Transport Users Committee
29. Leighton United Football Club
30. Macmillan Cancer Support
31. Meadow Way Community Centre
32. Monday Club for the Blind
33. Parkinson’s Disease Society
34. School Governors’ One-Stop Shop
35. Slip End Village Hall
36. South Bedfordshire Dyslexia Association
37. Voluntary and Community Action South Bedfordshire
38. Watling School
39. Woodcraft Folk – Leighton Buzzard District

2. The Governance Hub, Charity Commission and Volunteering England have launched the Get on Board campaign to raise the profile of trusteeship and bring in a new generation of trustees. More information at: http://www.getonboard.org.uk/

3. Volunteer Centre South Bedfordshire is one of the services of Voluntary and Community Action. Voluntary and Community Action is committed to strengthening the effectiveness of the voluntary and community sector in South Bedfordshire by developing, enabling, promoting and supporting voluntary and community action. It seeks to achieve this through advocacy; capacity building activities; enhancing the provision of volunteering opportunities; the exchange of information; the provision of training; advice and consultancy; and by working in partnership with others.

Contact:    
David Allen, Information Officer,
Voluntary and Community Action
Bossard House, West Street, Leighton Buzzard, LU7 1DA
Tel: 01525 850559 or 0780 6328739 (mobile),
info@action-southbeds.org.uk