Volunteer Telford

In this role, you will be providing a puppy with a vital foundation for its future role as a guide dog. This is a full-time volunteering opportunity as a puppy will live with you in your home for around 12-16 months.

What you’ll be doing

We rely on volunteers like you to help us improve the lives of people with sight loss. In this role your support will include:

- Following Guide Dogs Puppy Raising for Excellent Partnerships (PREP) programme, to raise and prepare a puppy to become a guide dog.

- Using our guidelines to care for your puppy e.g., providing sufficient exercise.

- Familiarising a puppy to a wide range of environments.

- Teaching a puppy to be alone by gradually building up from a few minutes to a maximum of 4 hours.

- Attending regular puppy classes.

- Meeting regularly with Guide Dogs representatives to discuss your pup’s development.

- Completing regular on-line questionnaires to help us monitor puppy progress.

You’ll get

Volunteering is a two-way street, so in return for your time you will get a dedicated volunteer manager/key contact who will help you settle in and support you during your time with us. You’ll also get:

- The satisfaction in knowing you are supporting people with sight loss to live actively, independently, and well.

- The challenge and reward of seeing a puppy develop in your home.

- The opportunity to learn and develop your understanding in dog body language, learning theory, the human animal bond and the life of a guide dog.

Training and support

This role has 13 hours of training and then you’ll be ready to go! These modules include:

- Our bespoke Puppy Raising for Excellent Partnerships (PREP) training to support you at every stage of the puppy’s development.

- Ongoing training both virtually and face to face as part of the role.

If you have questions about the training requirements, we can answer these at your interview along with any other support or accessibility needs you may have.

Volunteering for Guide Dogs should never leave you out of pocket. We’ll make sure we pay any expenses related to your volunteering with us in line with our policy.

What will you do:

Cleaning the café area, windows and floors

Time commitment:

At least twice a week, at their your convenient time

Benefits:

Travel expenses will be paid

Free hot meal, tea and coffee throughout the day

Develop new skills and make new friends

Increase confidence and self-esteem

Access to training

Wrekin View Primary School in Wellington is already host to a hugely successful Community Fridge, which supports up to 30 families a week by providing food and living essentials. They have now announced they are expanding their efforts to help end holiday hunger in Shropshire by opening a Community Café in the school hall over half term. Read on to find out more!

During the lockdown, school caretaker Russell Garner established Wrekin View Community Fridge. The motto of the food centre is ‘take what you want, donate if you can’, an inclusive message inviting the whole community to engage. No referral or documentation is required to use the fridge/HLC Food hub, and many families in the local community have benefitted from the scheme. A year on and the community fridge is still going strong, now supporting up to 30 families a week.  

Russell has now decided to expand by creating Wrekin View Community Café which will open in the Wrekin View Primary School Hall during school holidays. The café will open In the summer holidays from Monday 26^th July for two weeks every day from 10am-2:30pm. A wide variety of free food and drink will be available, from breakfast items including toast, cereal and bacon or egg baps, to tea, coffee and cakes in the afternoon. There will also be a lunch menu that will change on a daily basis, with both meat and vegetable options. 

Whilst the aim of the café is to provide hot food and drinks to families struggling to eat over the holiday period, the facility is open to all. Everything on offer is free, however if patrons feel that they can donate there will be a donation box to do this. 

Russell is extremely excited to re-open the café and is looking forward to welcoming the local community: ‘It will be a lovely place to be where people can relax and have good hot healthy food.

To support the cafe they are looking for Community Café Volunteers

Tasks include:

Setting up Café

Taking Orders from the table

Understanding /learning the menu

Understanding allergens

Time:

School holidays

The café is open 5 days a week (Mon – Fri)

Each shift is 6 hours, but will be flexible to your availability.

Training:

Induction and mandatory training will be provided

Location:

Wrekin View Primary School

North Rd,

Wellington,

Telford

TF1 3ES

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 Publicity Organiser.

Spreading the word is key to your local community understanding what your Read Easy group does and how people can get the reading support they need or volunteer to help.

You will be creative, determined and passionate about communications, and bringing people together. You’ll be confident using local media, social media, and creating leaflets, posters and other resources provided by Read Easy UK to help get the message out there into your community about the life-changing journey of learning to read.

Once the local community and media hear about the thousands of adults who can’t read in the area, it will be your responsibility to make sure that your local Read Easy group is able to capitalise on this attention!