# Volunteering



## Addy (Mar 12, 2010)

Do many CMF'ers volunteer? I know most of us are very busy people, and it's not always possible. My husband and I both volunteer, have seen as far back as I can remember, and we involve our children (5 yr old daughter) as much as reasonably possible. For us, since we move fairly often, volunteering is a great, often quick way to become involved in the community and meet some wonderful people.

Right now I am not working, and live in small town Ontario where the work is scarce, and what there is it's so low paying it's almost not worth working especially if you need daycare. So I volunteer quite a bit. I'm trying to concentrate on either things I find fun (volunteering to run a book club at a library for instance), or beneficial to future career moves (ie volunteering on various committees and boards).

Do others here volunteer? Is it on a regular basis? And, if you don't mind sharing, what do you volunteer at and why?


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## the-royal-mail (Dec 11, 2009)

I volunteer on the board of a local charity. I had a lot of fun with it over the past couple of years and am currently taking a bit of a break. One thing about volunteering is that you are most valuable when you are willing to do what is required when needed. The board needs to know "If I call Joe smith during crisis time, he'll be there to help". 

We have a lot of members but very few of them actually help us out when push comes to shove. We find that it's the same 5-10% of the members who do all the work and attend most of the events. This puts a lot of stress upon those few volunteers and so you have to have the time, energy, interest and willingness to devote to the event. We find this does not work if people are too busy with other things in their lives.

Many charities see spikes in volunteers coming forward during Christmas, for example. This is great but charities often need some more people to offer up some fairly specific skills to the board such as accounting (with certification), websites & design (again, professionals are the ideal here), newsletter articles and other duties as required by the board.


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## MoneyGal (Apr 24, 2009)

Board member of my local community health centre for 6 years (after two terms I now need to take a break for one term); until recently I was a Girl Guide leader; I serve on an admissions committee for a program at Ryerson and need to evaluate admissions in March; I just spent a week volunteering for the Financial Planning Standards Council writing questions for one of the 2013 CFP exams. 

I'm usually on two boards a year. I stopped leading Guides because I didn't feel I had enough time to do the job the girls deserved; it takes six hours/week to do a good job, plus camping trips and other extra activities (selling cookies!)

I love volunteering and don't envision ever stopping.


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## Four Pillars (Apr 5, 2009)

Yes, I answer a ridiculous amount of RESP questions every week free of charge.


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## MoneyGal (Apr 24, 2009)

:encouragement:


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## crazyjackcsa (Aug 8, 2010)

At this point I don't, but I plan to once my kids get older.

I was in college when I did an interview with a man being recognized for his volunteer work. I forget what organization was recognizing him, but it was for all his community efforts. He worked with a number of different groups in a bunch of different capacities. He was the 5-10% TRM mentions in his post, but he did it for more than one group.

His family was with him at the time, so I thought I'd ask one of his children (no more than 5-years-old) what they thought about all Dads hard work in the community.

I was expecting a simple "I think it's great." Kind of answer. Instead what I got was: "I wish Daddy was home more."

It was then I realized that over-dedicating yourself to volunteering is no better than over doing it at work, and when it comes to young kids, they just want their dad more.

Family comes first, volunteering second.


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## Addy (Mar 12, 2010)

Yes, it can be a fine line - you want to show your kids it's important to give to your community in ways other than money, while not over extending yourself and having your family suffer. Good point.

My husband started a bicycle valet service in Winnipeg that the Bombers took on, and now use on a pay per basis. He spent a lot of time with start up, I called the project "his mistress". But it wasn't so bad, I volunteered along with our 5 yr old at some of the events and our daughter enjoyed valeting the kids bikes, especially the cute ones with the colourful ribbons and pink bells


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## Plugging Along (Jan 3, 2011)

A this point, I am volunteering only with areas that will allow me to spend time with my family and kids. I have two young kids at home, work more than full time hours, plus have my own part time consulting job, and run a business with my spouse. I current have been my daughters guide leader for the last two years, and volunteer at the school very part time when I can rearrange my work day. When my second is old enough, I will lead her unit too. 

Prior to kids, I used to volunteer as a youth mentor, run the united way campaign at my work, and volunteer to prepare tax returns. Now, I have very little time, so I admit I am selfish by not volunteering more freely.

On another note, we ask our parents to volunteer about two nights a year (between sept and may), in addtion to helping out with some special events such as the camps, and the cookie sales. I cannot believe how hard it is and how much push back we have received. One parent informed us how busy she was with her one child, and can work up to 20 hours a week. :rolleyes2: Another parent complained that the kids had to pay $1 week dues (money wasn't the issue, we confirmed), and said that we, the volunteer leaders should spend more time selling cookies, so she didn't have to remember the money each week. I suggested she was more than welcome to organize tha event, as I was currently volunteering about 10 hours a week for her daughter, and couldn't afford more time away from my family. Sorry for the tangent. 

For those that volunteer kudos to you, for those that don't, just be nice to the people who are. Remember our pay can't be docked.


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## marina628 (Dec 14, 2010)

Yes we do at the local food bank for the needy and homeless shelter.My husband gets up at 6am twice a week to drive for them to pick up food donated by the Sobey's depot and my daughter and I do quite a bit of the print media ,flyers etc for them .


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## Maybe Later (Feb 19, 2011)

I'm on the boards of a couple non-profits and have agreed to chair the board for a local preschool next year. I also do a lot of their fixit stuff and heavy lifting. 

I think communicating community service to kids is great. My daughter loves it when I tell her I have a meeting for "her school" and my kids had a great time and felt very proud of a bottle drive organized by my nephews to support an orphanage in Tanzania for kids who've lost their parents to AIDS and other diseases.


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## jcgd (Oct 30, 2011)

I used to do some volunteering when I was younger, mainly with Big Brothers Big Sisters. My mother works there so I had quite a lot of involvement. In high school I was in the Big Bunch program which was really fun. I highly recommend it. Groups of 2-3 "bigs" (students) would be assigned 1-2 "littles" (the kids) and as a group you would do fun things like go to the science center, play sports, or other fun/ educational activities. It was fun for everyone and very rewarding to be a role-model for a kid. It's also a good way to get your feet wet if you are considering being a full out big brother or sister.

Now, honestly, the most I do it clean out the pantry and donate it to the food bank so I've been looking around for something like Habitat for Humanity. I'm an electrician so I could provide those services, but I also want to learn more about building homes, and I also want to help out with volunteer work. It looks like a win-win if I can find something I seem like a good fit for. The only issue I have about Habitat for Humanity is that they are faith based. I'm don't have any faith of my own and it makes me uneasy to be surrounded by people who do. It's very hard for me to articulate, but I simply find it really awkward. I'm slowly becoming more tolerant (I don't understand religion so in the past I haven't respected it), but I don't want to put myself in a position where I am surround by a culture or community that revolves around church and general principles that I don't hold. I would like to find something that is faith neutral I suppose. A charity where faith is simply not considered or mentioned.

Long story short, I'm just looking for a place where I can meet people who just want to do good, but where I'm not the odd one out of the group. Anyone have any ideas? I'd really like something in construction if possible.


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

I used to do more. Now I'm down to sitting on the board of an endowment fund. 

I think giving blood should count for something... I am O- blood type so I feel some additional duty to donate blood.


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## Assetologist (Apr 19, 2009)

We used to volunteer and support local charities but now have evolved to using skills within my field of expertise to help others in other far less fortunate countries. We pay a lot of taxes in Canada and the governments need to be accountable for their ongoing waste and their lack of attention to worthwhile social programs. Nobody should starve, freeze, etc in Canada but many of these safety nets are build from private funds. 
Sorry to politicize!


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## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

i strictly volunteer as a non-commissioned rookie private in the trenches. I like volunteer work that requires hands-on labour & directly serves the clients. Soup kitchens, for example.

the charities in my town - hospitals, health care, cultural organizations, libraries, schools, colleges, shelters, homeless services - have always been headed by hyper-ambitious types, usually social climbing or career climbing. Mostly women, but some men. Type A personalities abound on the boards. Oxygen gets thin up there.

i'm happy to contribute donation dollars to their causes & i do. But when it comes to physically attending someplace to volunteer my hands for half a day, i don't want to listen to em spin & schmooze. I want to get down & dirty in the soup pots.

somehow i believe parents have to do the PTA, so it hardly counts as volunteering. But when it comes to brownies, scouts, guides, then my hat comes off. These are real labours of love.

last week i saw some lovely volunteering at the arena ice rink. A class of 7-year-olds was on the ice learning to play hockey. Some of them were already racing far out in front with their child-sized sticks & their pucks.

i was told that this was a school which insists that all children must learn to skate by grade 3.

but there were 3 little boys in trouble. Two seemed to be very recent immigrants to canada. None could skate. They flopped around on the ice as if they were walking, like penguins. By the side of each boy, for the entire hour, now kneeling, now laughing, now coaxing, now holding them upright under the arms for a few minutes, now skating backwards holding their hands, skated a volunteer parent coach. Two mothers, one father. Not their own parents, of course. Volunteer parents. Was it ever lovely to see.


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## MoneyGal (Apr 24, 2009)

Absolutely, without any question, the most cut-throat board volunteer experience I had was on my kids' daycare board. More "type-A," and more intensely type-A personalities than any other volunteer board ever! :02.47-tranquillity:


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## Addy (Mar 12, 2010)

MoneyGal said:


> Absolutely, without any question, the most cut-throat board volunteer experience I had was on my kids' daycare board. More "type-A," and more intensely type-A personalities than any other volunteer board ever! :02.47-tranquillity:


Funny you mention this, the local library requested volunteers for a "Friends of the Library" committee and I offered to Chair if no one else wanted to, but a young ambitious woman volunteered and I was thankful someone else wanted to Chair. It became clear very quickly she has some issues, possibly around the fact that she lacks the work experience and has little post secondary education that the other committee members do. The sad thing is, I don't think anyone on the committee cares but her. Time for me to concentrate more on my other volunteer opportunities.

I served on my daughters Preschool Board for a few years, and it was actually a lot of fun, maybe it was just the right mix of people. It would be sad to see nonsense happening on a Preschool / Daycare board though, because in the end the only ones that it matters to is the kids.


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## Spidey (May 11, 2009)

I volunteer with palliative care patients. However, I've had to take a break until spring as my current schedule is fairly overwhelming.


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## crazyjackcsa (Aug 8, 2010)

Adding to what Humble had posted about "Type A" personalities. 

We have TWO rotary clubs in our city of about 45,000 people. Each complains each year about a lack of volunteers/members. So much to the point that insanely popular events (lke Ribfest) has had to be cancelled. 

Think the two would ever consider joining forces? Nope. They would rather cancel events and disband if they had to. And people wonder why organized volunteering is fading away.


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## Beaver101 (Nov 14, 2011)

Having to work full-time to pay the bills doesn't leave one much time to do regular volunteer work. However, I'm lucky to work in a company that participates in community-volunteer days at the local food-banks, soup kitchens or Habitat for Humanity. I like volunteering in the soup kitchens best since I'm most competent there and not so much with hammers and nails.


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## AMABILE (Apr 3, 2009)

I am presently volunteering as a keynote for the TORONTO KIWANIS MUSIC FESTIVAL
At Xmas, I wrapped eco-friendly gifts for the TORONTO GREEN COMMUNITY
Next month, I will be preparing income tax returns for low income / seniors at a community centre.


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## Ponderling (Mar 1, 2013)

I met my wife over 20 years ago in the Greater Toronto Area community theatre circuit. Not pure voulunteering, more likely middle class people playing and entertaining other middle class people. We have kept at it off and on, with efforts flagging a bit when the kids were young. We still do at least 2 shows a year each, down from the five or more pre kids. 

The theatre companies I primarily work with do give seniors and others a chance to see Broadway Muscials for the likes of $20-25. If you have priced downtown musical theatre you know this is a deal.

We have been producers, stage managers, actors, backstage crew, on board of directors off and on, written and editted newsletters, etc. 

Also involved with the kids in Scouts. Wife as a weekly meeting leader for the last 7 years. Me behind the scenes organizing and maintaining camping gear and taking on special projects that need doing. 

This involveemnt was a big part in how we had to become very organized on the grocery front. See the cheap grocery scheme thread to see where that led.


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