This role helps to raise vital funds for the charity's work, and
encourages others to do likewise. This role can involve organising
coffee mornings, dinners, lunches and days out. A fun and energetic
role for an organised social networker with a heart.
Here's an overview of the role and the skills required:
Download the role profile here.
For more information about becoming a volunteer events
organiser, please call Ronie Albesa on 020 7605 4255 or send
an email. You
can also contact your local area manager.
Meet Vanessa, volunteer events organiser
Vanessa is an illustrator and sculptor who lives in
Suffolk. Over the last 10 years, she has organised fundraising
events for the charity including balls, art exhibitions and garden
opens.
What made you want to become a volunteer events organiser
for Independent Age?
Because of the vagaries of my work, I knew that I wouldn't be able
to regularly visit people when they necessarily required me to. But
I used to work for an oil company, and part of my role in that was
PR and organising events. I thought I would be more useful if I
could raise funds, but I see my role as raising the profile as much
as raising funds. And I wanted to target my then age group, the
forties, because I thought that they would be the age group that
would have parents who would need help and were probably in a good
position to help, or offer financial support.
Please describe a 'day in the life' of a volunteer events
organiser.
I work very closely with my area manager. I can plan my work
around what's going on - it's a few hours here, a few hours there.
It's just being organised, and writing the letters asking for
sponsorship, and then putting things in place. Because if it's an
art exhibition, everything has to be taken in and set up the day
before. If it's a ball, then visits to the function place.
Obviously you have to have meetings and stuff, but on the day, I
think we spend the best part of the day blowing up balloons and
putting place names and things out. A lot of it is done as a social
thing.
And you gain something from it. You don't always have to get
something tangible to gain from an experience. I would say it's
like being part of a family, and I've made very close friends,
lifelong
