Importance of volunteer training By Andrea Dockeray

Induction- Approx 2hours  Checklist (Tick Box).  Housekeeping/Health and Safety.  Tour of site, fire assembly points etc.  Secrecy/confidentiality overview.  Staff and volunteer charter.  CU Membership.  Overview of collection procedure and CU.

Session 2 Training Min 2 hours  New volunteer- shadow a confident collector.  Split role into two and swap near end of session.  Continue this until collector is confident at both tasks.  Brief overview of what is Money laundering, where the suspicion form is kept and who the MLO is.  Ongoing training on weekly basis.  Everyone has different abilities some may take longer than others. Be patient with them if this is the case. Remember they are not being paid to do this job!

Accredited training  NVQs available via Lakes College  If less than 5 GCSE/ O Level passes C and below.  Customer Service.  Advice and guidance.  Admin and IT.  Level 2 currently available.  Must be volunteering for 3 months or equivalent for a min 2 hours per week.

Support/Mentoring  Volunteers are our backbone! Without them we would not be able to function.  Treated exactly the same as paid staff and directors.  Involved in the decision making via questionnaires and Bulletins & regular updates.  Short informal appraisals, acknowledgement of their time  Encouragement to apply for jobs and help with CV writing and offer of a reference if applicable.  Volunteers at all times must feel comfortable and part of the TEAM!  Most of all a thank you goes a long way from directors and staff.

Successes at WEDCU  Volunteers have in the last 3 years completed and achieved over 18 NVQs  2 are currently working towards Customer service level 2.  High retention of our volunteers currently over 50 including directors.  Servicing 19 collection points.  9 New volunteers have started in the last 5 months.  5 volunteers have moved into paid employment in last 6 months.  CN newspaper award for Cumbria Best Social enterprise 2011