I’ve had quite a few volunteer experiences since I retired in 2017 and I am here to report on them all. I did a post on volunteering when I first retired. Nothing like real life experience to see how things work.  Baby boomers are not your grandparents volunteers who beavered away at rummage sales and church teas. Many BB’s had responsible jobs and know how to manage people and things.  BB’s have more knowledge and expertise than those who are hiring them as volunteers.  This can be intimidating for young volunteer managers.  

Clinical Trial at UBC

My first volunteer gig was being part of a clinical trial at UBC. The idea was to test an iphone App called BrainHQ to see if it improved your memory. There were already many studies on this app so I am not sure what was new about this study. The study involved two groups, one that used the app and one that did not. Sadly I was in the group that did not get the app until the end of the 6 week study. Of course you want to know the results but so far they have not published the results. There were many cool things about this volunteer gig. If you are interested in participating in clinical trials, some are online. Here is the link.

1. I could walk because I was close to Vancouver General Hospital’
2. We attended an activity three times a week for 6 weeks that included some exercise, games, spreakers and conversation.
3. I got tested on a whole lot of cognitive function tests and they gave you the results at the end so you can see if you are loosing it.. or by how much you are loosing it compared to people your age. The testing included an MRI which is why I took one point off.

Rating

• Fun factor 7/10
• New friends 0/10
• Worthwhile use of my time 10/1
• Treated with respect 9/10
• Overall Rating 9/10

BC Science center tried to recruit me to stand in the lobby and click a clicker to count the people coming through. You much be joking.

ESL tutoring

The next volunteer gig was assisting at English as a second language classes at Mosaic in Vancouver which is a huge organization. I have recently recertified as a teacher in British Columbia so I thought I could get some recent experience. I was supposed to be a teachers assistant to the real ESL teacher. I was assigned to a class with about 10 people who had close to no English comprehension and were from multiple different countries and from ages 20 – 90. One elderly person was deaf and cognitively impaired. Another person had some learning disorders. There were about 5 people who had potential to learn English. My job was to help students when they were doing small group work. This will rank as my worst volunteer experience ever.

• Long bus trip to the classroom.
• Waste of my time
• Was told I was not to make any suggestions to the 25 year old tutor.

Rating

• Fun factor -1/10
• New friends 0/10
• Worthwhile use of my time 1/10
• Treated with respect 1/10
• Overall rating 1/10

Review of the literature on non- symptomatic Covid 19.

I volunteered for this as my real job had involved a lot of health care research and it thought this would be a good use of my talents. I was assigned and the question and wrote a paper on the topic for a group at UBC. This was early 2019 and there were not many papers on the topic so it was rather a short job but interesting. I have been very interested in the whole COVID 19 process. About 2 years later a received a lovely thank you letter from UBC that I am thinking about framing. I was invited to an online think tank on Zoom but there were about 30 people talking over each other.. OMG. Won’t do that again I said to myself. So I decided I had had enough of this project. It was overwhelming. It was my first experience with grandstanding.

Rating

• Fun factor -9/10
• New friends 0/10
• Worthwhile use of my time 10/10
• Treated with respect 7/10
• Overall rating 7/10

Immunization clinics

Fast forward to Covid 19. I volunteered at the immunization clinics for Vancouver Island Health Authority in Courtenay. I was responsible to herding people through the lines to the nurses and making sure everyone was feeling comfortable with the process. Then I would site in the after care space chatting with people. I feel that this has paid all my debts to society. It was very well organized. I was hard to stand for 4 hours. But I enjoyed chatting with the wide variety of people coming through the clinic. The big surprise at the end was the goody bag given to all the volunteers at the end include many gift cards and a bottle of wine. Who knew????

Rating

• Fun factor -9/10
• New friends 0/10
• Worthwhile use of my time 10/10
• Treated with respect 9/10
• Overall Rating 9/10

Habitat for Humanity online auction

I volunteered to research objects donated to the Restore to see if they are valuable enough to put in their online auction. This involved going into a dark and dusty closet can pawing through cartons of old stuff. Stuff included pseudo vintage snow shows, copper tea post, vintage figurines and other strange things that I could not identify. Since this was a new job, I set up a process to do the online search and set up a file with the results. The Restore is a busy spot and space it at a premium. It was interesting to see why kind of thing people donate. This was a surprisingly time consuming activity. I went to a few meetings. Not my cup of tea.

Rating

• Fun factor -0/10
• New friends 0/10
• Worthwhile use of my time 5/10
• Treated with respect 2/10
• Overall rating 5/10

Sitting the quilt

While on Hornby Island I did some shifts sitting in the courtyard among the businesses selling tickets for a quilt raffle. This is the ultimate meet and greet job. You get to chat with everyone passing through Hornby Island for all over the world. What could be more fun?

Rating

• Fun factor -10/10
• New friends 1/10
• Worthwhile use of my time 5/10
• Treated with respect 9/10
• Overall rating 9/10

So what lessons have I learned?

• Volunteer work can be physically demanding so be sure you have the stamina to do the job.
• Do you like the person who is hiring you?
• Do you thrive on chaos. Some do! Not me.
• For me it is important to have some interest in the work
• I like doing meet and greet and I am good at it. And it makes everyone feel good.
• Its hard to find a fun and interesting volunteer job.

1. Have written job descriptions for volunteers, including the number of hours per week and the length of the volunteer commitment. 
2. Make it clear who the volunteer reports to.
3. Have a schedule available from day 1 unless the job is on-call.
4. Have a short job orientation including a tour of the premises and introductions to others.
5. Avoid the requirements for criminal record checks if possible.  It’s a hassle.  Just because you can do it on the computer doesn’t make it any easier.  I have an existing criminal record check as part of my teacher certification, had one done in 2021 to work in the vaccination clinic, and then was asked to do it again in 2022 to volunteer for island health. I was just asked to do another one to volunteer to teach Ukrainian refugees. That’s three times in three years.  The RCMP has to process all these requests.  
6. I did appreciate the gift cards I got from one volunteer gig.  I am not into volunteer appreciation events. Call me a curmudgeon. 😊😊😊. 

• What has been your favourite volunteer gig and why? Or why haven’t you volunteered?

artwork is by ALPIN KELLEY on Hornby Island