Volunteers

I'm wondering if those asking for volunteers are a little fussy. A relative was sent for unpaid work experience by the jobcentre. They turned her down as they wanted an experienced caterer. Why does an experienced person need to do job experience

Good point.

I can see they may be helpful for work experience but I'm still not convinced that they could be harming the job market in some areas (such as libraries).

I think there is a place for volunteering, its lovely to do something just for the pure enjoyment. It offers socialising to those who feel isolated and it can give organisations a nice deep pool of staffing resources.
What I do not agree with suggesting that someone who wants a paid job, and needs one too, should do some volunteering to sort of keep their hand in. There is a vast difference between dabbling for enjoyments sake (and supporting a cause you feel strongly about) and trying the earn a living.
I volunteer because I enjoy it but I do not need to be paid. This leaves me in the enviable situation of not having to worry about illness or another commitment...I just rearrange a date and time. There are people I know who have 'proper' and quite important jobs who also enjoy volunteering to add to their community. Its just not the same thing.

Good points also HildaW.

With the librarian report, I remembered when I was first taken to the library and I was browsing the books in the children's section. One of the librarians came over and asked if she could help, what kind of stories I liked and then she selected some books for me to browse through to see if I wanted to take them home - she was spot on with the choices she made. After that, I always asked for help. Would volunteers have that same depth of knowledge?

I have done volunteering for over 20 years in different fields but I don't think I ever 'researched' the same as I would had it been a permanent position.

I was a volunteer at the primary school where I also did paid work. I listened to children read. I continued to volunteer for a couple of years after retirement. I can't do it any more due to having DGS.

A few weeks ago there was a letter in our local newspaper criticising volunteers for taking over the running of one of the small libraries when it was earmarked for closure. The writer felt that these well meaning volunteers were actually encouraging the laying off of people who needed paid employment.

The following week there was a very angry, and I thought unnecessarily rude, letter from one of the volunteers who said that many of the volunteers did paid work also and had busy lives and were giving up their time to help the community.

I could see both points of view but it did occur to me that as long as people keep such amenities open by working for free, the community is shielded from the reality of public service cost-cutting. Also, if such volunteers lose interest in the work or other opportunities or responsibilities arise, they may quit volunteering and leave the service at risk anyway.

Our town's Visitor Information centre is now manned by volunteers.......if they had not stepped in and offered their help for free, it would have closed!
Volunteers do not take jobs, they fill in where there are short comings and provide a wonderful service (often with a smile and with lots of local knowledge.
Our wonderful (and award winning) local village shop is staffed by volunteers and run by a marvellous committee who give of their time and excellent 'professional' services for free.....if it was not for them we would not have a village shop. I could go on....but will not. Just want to say that if someone criticised me for volunteering, stating that I was taking someone's job I think I'd be a bit miffed too.

I volunteer at our local Heritage Centre. There isn't any way that this could exist without volunteers as we receive no funding whatsoever apart from tiny amounts per annum from the 'landowners' of the immediate area. We don't charge for entry as the £1 fee seemed to put people off. Everyone who works there is retired, apart from one busy young mum who has set up our website for us and does other invaluable work.

If the library had closed because of a lack of paid staff, it would never have re-opened. The books would have been removed, the fittings taken down, the building sold off to a developer. Starting again from scratch would have entailed just too much hassle, so the library would have been lost forever.

There is always the possibility that after the volunteers have kept it going for a while, the powers-that-be will think it expedient to employ a professional librarian full-time.

To keep it before the eyes of the public that the librarian staff had been cut, a big notice could be put up, to say that"This facility is staffed by volunteers"

In my county there are at least 10 libraries which are now RUN entirely by volunteers. The only support from the county now is the IT system. They would have been closed 10 years ago by the County. My local volunteer library has all it's books donated, runs monthly coffee mornings, kiddies story time, excess book sales and invites local authors (some well known ones) to give talks several times a year. It has become a very important part of the community in this thriving village. It has at least 30 volunteers, all of whom are very knowledgeable about the stock, and books in general. I think it performs better than a county run one. But I am biased as I am a committee member

Marelli It was the local Heritage Centre that turned down my relatives voluntary services as she wasn't an experienced caterer

We don't have 'free libraries' on the Island, people who want to use them have to pay to join and they are doing quite well (many books are donated (by ordinary people like me who have finished reading their books)), they may receive some funds from the local Commissioners but the bulk of the revenue comes from subscriptions to the library. They also now have a bank of computers with free WiFi to anyone that wants to use them. All staff are paid.

I think we might have snapped her up, ninathenana!

I volunteer at a drug/alcohol rehab centre and I do my paid work too so it means I cannot do as much as I would like to. I really enjoy helping out but Im under pressure as Im thinking about my paid job ( I have very flexi hours) and am I perhaps doing voluntary work when I could be doing paid work.
As soon as the government says I can retire I will happily work as a volunteer every day-cant wait