Monday 4^th December 2017, 4-5pm, G13/14 Seminar rooms – Life Sciences Building

Want to volunteer but not sure where to start? Don’t want to pay the earth? Want to hear about trialled and tested opportunities from your fellow students? Or simply want to hear about people’s volunteering experience?

My name is Tim Dodd and I am starting up Unisphere Volunteers, a student-led volunteering platform, both in person and online, which will give the opportunity for a breadth of student volunteers to share their experiences with those interested, all in one sitting! This will be particularly useful if you want to find out the sorts of things that are out there and hear about the real experiences of people who have done it and who you can talk to, rather than reading anonymous reviews online. The experiences shared will be as varied as possible and different every session – be that conservation, community or teaching work etc. Come along if interested in volunteering for the first time, if you want to try volunteering in a new field, or if you want to find out more about Unisphere Volunteers! The format will be a 1 hour talk, featuring a variety of volunteering opportunities (6 x 10 min talks) delivered by students who have done them themselves! If interested in any of the organisations presented, all talkers will be available at the end to speak to and refer you to further information.

Free tickets and information on the speakers and organisations for the first event are available from this link: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/unisphere-volunteers-introductory-talk-w-speakers-tickets-39688952726

This is being supported by the Global Opportunities department, however in order for this to be sustainable we really need to build a base of willing speakers who are passionate about the work they did and want to share it with others. I am particularly interested in people who didn’t have to spend £1000s to do it via OpWall, GVI etc., because I know the hefty prices involved can be off-putting to students and serve as a barrier to getting involved, but also that the more reasonably priced opportunities are hard to find. However, if you HAVE done some with the bigger organisations I still want to hear from you as this is all about presenting a diversity of experiences. If you are interested in speaking, this could be a great opportunity not only to tell others about your experiences of organisations that you’re passionate about, but also to practice your public speaking to a small seminar audience, invaluable to careers in science and large corporations. If you’d like do a small 10 minute talk at one of the sessions please express your interest via the google docs form below and I will be in touch – talks are usually organised over a month in advance so you’ll have plenty of time to make a little PowerPoint.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSftVYdUD5qyhUL4q6H_kDVSzTqNHM4kD5s-sI5Zxb88zOJc1w/viewform?usp=sf_link