Volunteering

Here at 1st Taxal Scouts, all our activities and the group is run by volunteers, and we cannot function without the help that people offer.

Volunteering is not just about giving back – it goes both ways. It improves your wellbeing, gives you skills for the future, and helps you make new friends (and memories) – It’s good for you.

Whatever your skill set, lend a hand for as little or as much time as you can spare, and we promise your support will make a massive difference to our members. No one in our Group gets paid – everything we do and achieve relies upon people like you. Our volunteering opportunities range from helping a leader to run an activity or meeting, assisting at a camp, running a fundraising activity or helping us with our administration and hut maintenance.

You might want to:

• Try something new

• Make friends 

• Spend time with or gain experience with young people

• Do something good for your community and yourself

• Keep your body and brain active and happy – whether that’s by scaling mountains, sharing skills or helping with admin.

All end up making a huge difference to young people’s lives – gifting them with skills for life, and learning a whole lot about themselves along the way.

As well as running the activities for the young people, various other things happen behind the scenes to keep everything running smoothly. A lot of the leaders also give up their time to do this, but this is becoming more challenging for more and more people, and we are only a small team - many of these jobs only require occasional time, so we would like to get more people supporting these items to allow leaders & trustees to focus on delivering the exciting activities that are provided for the young people.

If you are interested in being a leader or a trustee or helping out in any other way please contact us on join@1sttaxalscouts.org.uk!

Here is a list of (some of) jobs that we could really do with some help with, including a short description and typical frequency:

Scouts jobs	Detail	Frequency
Clean hut	Regular cleaning of hut/kitchen/toilets	Weekly
Bookings	1. Maintain calendar of when hut is available, respond to enquries about bookings 2. Open up hut for visitors, show around, pick up keys when leave etc.	ad hoc
Cut grass	Mowing the grass ont he bottom section of lawn / field	Fortnightly (during spring/summer)
Hedge/garden maintenance	Cutting back the slope, hedges, bushes etc around the hut, the lawn and the pathway	Monthly (in summer)
Building maintenance	General repairs and upkeep of the hut	quarterly and as required
Quotes for repairs	Obtaining quotes from tradespeople for adhoc repairs and upgrades e.g. electrician, plumber, building work	as required
Gas supply check	Check gas connections, check bottle levels, replace bottles when needed.	Monthly
Social media	Post updates on behalf of group/sections on social media (largely facebook)	Weekly
Website maintenance	Management/administration of the website including from both hosting and design POV and making regular content updates	monthly
Washing tea towels	Wash used tea towels/towels and replace when clean	fortnightly
Purchasing hut supplies	e.g. fairy liquid, toilet roll, bin bags etc.	as required
Fundraising support	Help with fundraising efforts including identifying and applying for grants and fundraising events	monthly
First Aid Kit maintenance	Update first aid kits to make sure all items current and re-stock as requred	monthly
Coffee Mornings	Set up & run cofee morning, organise vounteers, sell teas/coffee/cake, raffle & prizes, tombola etc	3x / year
Put bins out	Ensure bins are put out to be emptied on recycling/bin weeks	weekly
Waiting List Maintenance	Add new members to waiting list when we get enquiries. Track positions on waiting list Contact members when spaces available (termly). Respond to queries about waiting list.	termly / ad hoc
Secretary	Help to arrange trustee/leaders meetings and take minutes and actions	twice a term

Please get in touch if you are able to help at all with any of these items, the team will happily show you the ropes and what needs to be done!