Volunteering Support

About the Volunteer Centre

The Volunteer Centre, based at PAVS, can support you with recruiting and managing volunteers. From sample policies and documents through to help with advertising your opportunities and ‘matching’ potential volunteers to your opportunities and celebrating volunteers.

We work with individuals, voluntary organisations, community groups and public sector organisations to promote volunteering opportunities and to support individuals to find volunteer placements that suit their needs. 

New to recruiting and/ or managing volunteers?

The Volunteer Centre at PAVS is here to help. Need a Volunteering Policy, templates and an idea of where to start to recruit and mange volunteers effectively, and safely? Talk to one of the trained Volunteering Officers, during office hours, or you can find a lot of the information you may need here:

Some great resources created by our colleagues in West Glamorgan. 

Including a Policies and Procedures Checklist for Volunteer involving organisations and a Volunteer Co-ordinator Guide Toolkit 

West Glamorgan Volunteering Support

You might be interested in this free online course, developed by our colleagues in Carmarthenshire. Which takes you through all the elements of Volunteer Management from getting started to more complex volunteer management issues. You don’t need a login and can dip in and out as you please, the first module is called ‘Preparing to involve volunteers’ the second is on the Volunteering Policy. 

CAVS Learning Portal

Modules take between 30-45 minutes. 

New Volunteer Managers/ Supervisors

Anyone new to supervising/ managing volunteers might be interested in these free courses (they will need an email address and password to register and login):

There are many more courses on the site, including Safeguarding as well as lots of information sheets on a variety of topics.

Courses here https://thirdsectorsupport.wales/our-courses/

Information sheets here https://thirdsectorsupport.wales/our-resources/volunteering/

Need Volunteers?

The Volunteer Centre, based at PAVS, can help with advertising for new volunteers via the Volunteering Wales website https://volunteering-wales.net/ 

All organisations must have – as a minimum a Volunteering Policy and Insurance that covers volunteers. 

Volunteering Wales is a searchable site that all Volunteer Centres in Wales use, as well as the general public (and our partners such as employability schemes, schools, colleges etc.). Volunteer Centres use the site to ‘match’ potential volunteers to where there are opportunities, individuals can use it to find opportunities and make contact directly with organisations looking for volunteers. 

The website is the place to advertise for volunteering opportunities where you are recruiting volunteers to come on a regular basis (more ‘formal’ opportunities). 

We can help you get registered, and get your roles advertised, we can even offer 1-2-1 orientation sessions on how to use the site (or just have a look around) via zoom/ teams. Also once you are registered you get free membership to PVON (Pembrokeshire Volunteer Organiser’s Network – see below).

Getting on to Volunteering Wales is a 2-stage process, each organisation must register https://volunteering-wales.net/register  once the registration has been approved opportunities can be added (these also have to be approved by the Volunteer Centre), there is even a ‘profile page’ for every organisation where you can let people know a bit more about what you do. 

You can have more than one contact per account and volunteers can see a contact email address for the organisation before they apply for an opportunity.

Alternatively if you are planning an ‘open day’ or one off volunteering day where you would like people to turn up and help just for that day you can advertise via the ‘Community Listings’ page on the Connect Platform (and social media). This is a bit like an online community noticeboard where activities and events happening across Pembrokeshire are listed https://connectpembrokeshire.org.uk/activities

Free courses for your volunteers

Volunteers can access some basic online learning via our colleagues in Carmarthenshire (CAVS), who put 5 short modules on their website specifically for volunteers, ‘confidence’, ‘confidentiality’ and ‘staying safe’ for those new to volunteering there is  ‘Preparing to volunteer’ and ‘How volunteering can work for you’ https://cavs.org.uk/learning/learning-portal/

They are free and don’t even need an email/ login. Volunteers just follow the link and work through the course/ sections that are of interest. 

PAVS currently have a bursary scheme running with Learning Pembrokeshire, which allows anyone already volunteering in Pembrokeshire to attend a course with Learning Pembrokeshire (that would be beneficial to their volunteer role) for free. These are generally face-to-face courses delivered throughout Pembrokeshire and can range from First Aid and Food Hygiene to digital skills. 

Contact the Volunteer Centre for more information, or see the PVON Padlet.

Thanking your volunteers

Certificates

The Volunteering for Pembrokeshire certificate scheme for volunteers, this is where volunteers (who are interested) can keep a timesheet and we will process certificates for the hours they volunteer, 10, 50, 100+ hours all the way up to 1000. More here https://www.pavs.org.uk/help-for-people/volunteering/

Pembrokeshire Volunteering Awards 

Celebrating outstanding volunteers across Pembrokeshire and the special difference they have made in people’s lives!

Volunteers’ Week 1-7 June

Volunteers’ Week is an annual celebration of the contribution people make across Pembrokeshire (and the UK) through volunteering.

There are specific theme days throughout the week and we try to put on events, training, meetings and other activities during the week. A lot on online promotion is done (social media) and there are logos. Graphics and marketing materials available to help you thank your volunteers and celebrate. Most planning and promotional activity is promoted via the PVON network (see below)

Pembrokeshire Volunteer Organiser’s Network (PVON)

Support for Volunteer Managers/ Supervisors

We facilitate the Pembrokeshire Volunteer Organiser’s Network (PVON) which is free to join. Meetings are held 3 times a year (zoom/ face-to-face) with guest speakers/ networking and updates. In between meetings we send around emails and update information here