Celebrating 30 years' service to the community in 2010
Volunteers can help in one or more of the following sections:-
- Duty Officers - process the telephone requests and find a suitable volunteer for the client. The Duty Officers work from home and are usually on duty one day per month, their office documentation and stationery fits into 2 holdalls which they transfer to the next day’s Duty Officer after office hours.
- Bag Movers – kindly transfer the bags for those Duty Officers who are unable to transfer the bags themselves. Usually about 14 transfers required each month, therefore frequency for each volunteer is about once every other month.
- Transport – volunteers use their own cars to transport clients usually in and around St Albans, but sometimes further afield. About half of the journeys involve taking clients to hospital appointments, a quarter are social e.g. family visits, shopping expeditions and community centres, the remainder are classified as medical, i.e. doctors surgeries, dentists, opticians, clinics etc.
- Light Help – volunteers provide help with shopping, relieve carers and collect prescriptions usually for those clients who are housebound.
- Heavy Help – volunteers handle heavier jobs around the home, e.g. moving furniture, minor repairs, decorating and gardening.
- Befriending – volunteers in this section are CRB checked since they visit the elderly in their own homes about once a week, to provide companionship and a chat when needed.
Facts and figures
The Scheme was formed in 1980 to assist lonely housebound local residents who needed help.
Currently the Scheme has about 350 clients and 150 volunteers.
Last year the Scheme responded to around 1,600 requests for help from members of the public.
Our wonderful volunteers made around 1,200 journeys and covered some 18,000 miles.