Volunteer Telford

Read Easy Telford and Shropshire East is affiliated to Read Easy UK, a national charity that helps adults learn to read and which has nearly 60 groups across England.

Read Easy Telford & Wrekin was established in 2019 and continues to grow to be a highly impactful local group with an increasing number of Reading Pairs (Reading Coach and Reader).

It is run by a hard-working, dedicated group of team members, all of whom are also volunteers.
The group is now seeking a new Volunteer Recruiter. 

Role:

To manage the recruitment process of all volunteers for the group, and interview volunteers with the coordinator or team leader.

What do you need to have?

Ramblers Wellbeing Walks, Telford and Wrekin currently run 17 walks across 11 different locations in Telford, most are weekly, with one running twice a month and 3 just once a month.

These walks are supported by 26 active leaders. Unlike many Ramblers Wellbeing Walks schemes, this is run by a purely volunteer group.  

The aims of the scheme are to provide free, friendly, dependable walks that only need good footwear. The walks are graded at 3 levels, none lasting longer than 90 mins.

The scheme is now looking for Walk Leaders:

Although the scheme is running successfully, recruiting more walk leaders would decrease the pressure on current leaders and give more flexibility.  Map reading and compass skills not required!

Main duties:

Leading a particular walk(s) on a schedule to be agreed.

Time Commitment:

Up to 3 hours weekly, at agreed times and venues

Minimum commitment:  1 hour on a regular basis a month.  

Location:

Various locations across Telford.

We are a Christian charity that collects unwanted usable tools, refurbishes them, sorts them into trade tool kits and sends them to the developing world for livelihood creation.

The main role of a Community Ambassador is to speak publicly on behalf of TWAM and be our public face in their locality. This will mean receiving invitations from a variety of groups wanting a volunteer speaker to talk about TWAM.

Talks can be from 10 minutes to 40 minutes long and may include a Q&A session. Please don’t worry as we will not ask you to speak at a meeting you are not confident to attend.

What are we looking for?

This is a great role for a confident speaker who wants to share our passion to transform lives through skills training and tools. You’ll need access to transport, and if you use your car, legally we will also need to check you have adequate motor insurance and your car has an MOT.

What will you be doing?

Groups such as Rotary, U3A, and WI ask for talks about TWAM. We also work with many Churches who ask us to speak at Church Services and Mid-week meetings (we will only ask a Christian comfortable with this setting to speak at Churches).

We will provide talks and presentations that you can use, and for our busiest Community Ambassadors, we can also provide projectors and screens.

We ask our Ambassadors to try and get their own meetings as well as waiting for those referred by us. An email or phone call to a local group will often lead to an invitation.

What difference will you make?

This is an incredibly rewarding role as you get to meet lots of people and excite and enthuse them with the work of TWAM. Your enthusiasm will also help TWAM raise vital funds, gain the tools we need to operate, and gain new volunteers. This is a great difference to make!

Volunteer benefits.

You’ll join our Speaker Network with lots of support, resources, ideas and opportunities for training. You receive a Speaker Pack, TWAM polo-shirt and fleece. You’ll be invited to Volunteer Days and Open Days.

The trail was established in 2018 to celebrate Telford’s 50th anniversary.

Since then, it has been well used for recreation, charity events and ultra and relay events. There is a guidebook, this generates an income which is used to support the trail.  The state of the trail is monitored by a panel of champions who look after set stages. 

Any problems they find are either dealt with by them, by members of the committee or referred to Telford and Wrekin Council.

In 2023 the group applied for a grant to establish and waymark 23 short circular Coronation Walks throughout the Borough. Work on these is progressing well.

The group runs a website a Facebook page and holds occasional events.

The group is looking for new blood on the committee. Ideally they would like for a new secretary (a minutes secretary would be a help), possibly a new chair (although the current secretary is happy to take this if a new secretary can be found), but new people on the committee would be welcome.

The time commitment varies tremendously so flexibility is another key asset.

The committee meets about 8 times a year, in the early evenings, by Zoom.

The chair chairs these meetings and takes a lead in all the major decisions of the group.

The current secretary mainly deals with any incoming emails, prepares agendas and minutes, looks after the website , issues certificates on request to those completing the trail, administers  the annual Relay Challenge, represents the group on the Local Access Forum,  sends occasional emails to the  Mail chimp list  of members  and  is one of the Facebook admins.

With a new secretary, some of these tasks could be delegated to others on the committee.  .