PrintVolunteers
Welcome to the Volunteers Page!
Volunteering is a rewarding and career changing activity. We are always welcome to receive new volunteers to support the Members and Students of the Society and how much time you can spare is entirely up to you.
We understand that you will have work and home life committments but volunteering can take on a variety of forms that will take as little or as much time as you can spare.
Volunteering activities for the Society include:
- Helping to organise events in your local area
- Speaking at one of those events
- Being a member of a sub-group to provide support to Members in your local area
- Helping students to get through their exams
- Writing articles for Spreadsheet Magazine
- Taking photographs at events
- Being a Member of the Council to help cascade CIPFA's national strategy to a local level
In addition there are other volunteering activities you can undertake for CIPFA centrally that could be done from the comfort of your own home or by attending meetings at head office in London or other locatons around the Country. These include:
- Being a member of a CIPFA Panel or Board
- Invidulating at Exams
- Becoming a FMCS marker (Case Study)
- Becoming an IPDS Assessor
- Researching and writing articles and updates for the TIS (technical information service)
And many more. To see the full range of volunteering activities available for CIPFA, go to the main volunteers page at www.cipfa.org.uk/volunteers/
Benefits for Volunteers
There are huge benefits for you both personally and career wise in volunteering. One volunteer recently said ''I am in no doubt that my volunteering activities helped me in my career and enabled me to secure a much better, higher paid job''.
The main benefits for volunteers are:
- Learning new skills that can be used to help in the workplace
- Using new skills gained to develop in your career
- The feeling of 'giving something back' to Members who had at one time helped support you through your own professional qualification
- Helping Students to achieve success in their exams and thus sustaining your Institute for the future
- Meeting new people and developing networks that will be available to support you throughout your career
- Developing a social networking side and having fun with friends and colleagues
Benefits for Employers
As an employer you may see volunteering as your staff taking valuable time out of the organisation to carry out a hobby. However the volunteering activities of your staff are actually bringing additional valuable skills and developmental opportunities into your organisation, making your staff more efficient and effective with increased levels of morale and motivation.
In reality, by allowing your staff a little time out of the office to support their professional activities could bring huge benefits to you in the long run in the form of:
- Staff continually update their existing skills ensuring they are on top of new developments and initiatives that is then passed into the workplace
- Staff learn new skills without the organisation paying for the cost of courses and conferences that are then passported into the workplace
- Staff build up a network of contacts with a wide variety of knowledge that they can call upon to solve problems they may have in the workplace without the need to pay for professional advice
- Staff gain more confidence and push themselves out of their comfort zones therefore wanting to progress in work, take on new activities and find new and more efficient ways to carry out their work activities
In the North West and North Wales we are very lucky to have a strong volunteer contingent and we would not be able to sustain this without the support of their employers. We thank those organisations for that and encourage more organisations, when faced with the question by staff of the opportinity of volunteering, to allow them a little time to undertake some volunteer activities for your mutual benefit.
Volunteer Induction Pack
Whether you are a potential volunteer or an existing volunteer, we hope you will find this pack useful. Although the full pack appears quite lenghty, all the main information is in the body of the pack with the supporting information held in the appendices that you can read and download as and when you need to.
If you are an existing volunteer you will especially find the role statements beneficial as each volunteer activity has a role statement that is a kind of job description for the activity you undertake. This is meant to be used as a guide for most volunteer roles as we understand that volunteers have diferring levels of commitment depending on their work and home life. However, some of the activities in the role statements for key volunteering positions e.g. Chair and Secretary of sub-groups do come with an element of responsbility to carry out specific functions, and these are listed in the role statements
- Volunteer Induction Pack
- Appendix 1 - CIPFA's Guidance for Volunteers
- Appendix 2 - Volunteer Skills Matrix
- Appendix 3 - Regional Activities Model Guidelines
- Appendix 4 - CIPFA Guide to Organising Events
- Appendix 5 - Guide to Communicating with Members
- Appendix 6a - Society President's Role Statement
- Appendix 6b - Society Chair Role Statement
- Appendix 6c - Society Treasurer Role Statement
- Appendix 6d - Auditor Role Statement
- Appendix 6e - Society Secretary Role Statement
- Appendix 6f - Website Coordinator & Administrator Role Statement
- Appendix 6g - Council Member Role Statement
- Appendix 6h - Sub Group Chair Role Statement
- Appendix 6i - Sub Group Secretary Role Statement
- Appendix 6j - Sub Group Member Role Statement
If you are interested in volunteering and would like some further information or would simply like to talk to someone about what you can do, please go to the contacts page and select someone from the area you are most interested in, alternatively contact the Secretary at CIPFANWNW@cipfa.org.uk