Volunteers are at the core of beYOU, without them we simply would not be able to offer our services. They staff the Helpline. They support people, face-to-face, at the beHERE drop-in sessions. They help with promotion, recruitment and fund raising. Whilst of course the committee is entirely made up of volunteers.

Volunteering isn’t an easy task, it can be both physically and emotionally challenging, yet people from the local community turn up week after week to support beYOU in its important work.

The committee would like to extend its thanks to the current volunteer body, give a warm welcome to new volunteers, and offer a fond farewell to those who have left us.

Training
Training is a very important element of beYOU. New volunteers are trained over three consecutive sessions covering a wide range of subjects relative to our core services. Role play exercises cover some of the more difficult situations volunteers have to deal with. Safer sex, ‘coming out’, relationship issues, local information and resources are all covered.

Once completed, new volunteers take part in a series of ‘observer sessions’ where they are present at both the Helpline and the beHERE drop-in, before full membership of the organisation, and their inclusion into the volunteer rota.

All volunteers take part in four training days every year. These are used as refresher opportunities, as well as transferring our volunteer’s diverse skills. In the past year we have had sessions on development strategy, team work and promotion skills, (which resulted in the poster design for our successful recruitment project).

Recruitment
beYOU has always had a turnover of volunteers. Understandably people move away from the area, change jobs, or simply run out of time to give. In recent years we have not been recruiting enough new members to cover turnover, let alone those needed to support our growth.

This year, following the departure of further valued volunteers, we decided to initiate a volunteer recruitment strategy. Our target was seven new volunteers before the September training course.




A campaign was created by the volunteers themselves, the
central message being ‘could this beYOU?’ along with an
image of many people supporting themselves. However we also
needed a way to increase the local community’s awareness of
our organisation. A message board evening was suggested, and was so successful that we have now surpassed our original volunteer recruitment target!

Contact and Non-contact
Historically all of the Helpline’s members staffed the phone and organised face-to-face meetings. With the increased amount of work required to run beYOU and its various services, not to mention the specialist skills it involves, it became clear that we needed a new membership policy to allow for volunteers who just do specific jobs.

With this in mind we have now split membership of beYOU into two groups, contact and non-contact. Contact members are those who have completed the full training course, and directly interface with our core clients. Non-contact members attend a shorter training course and deal with management, support or organisational roles. They will have contact with members of the community during social or promotional events.

Of course all volunteers are bound by our strict confidentiality agreements and operational procedures.