The benefits of volunteering
Volunteering with Circles South West has proven to reap a range of fantastic benefits. From money saving perks to a variety of practical skills, volunteers who join us here at Circles South West gain many wonderful things from their time with us.
A five year study into Circles, under take by Research in Practice, found that ‘Circles volunteers were overwhelmingly positive about their experience with CSW’ with a fantastic 88% agreeing with the statement
‘I found my experience volunteering with Circles rewarding’ and an incredible 93% stating that they ‘would recommend volunteering with Circles to others’.
This shows that our volunteers are enjoying their experiences with us. As well as enjoyment, 78% of volunteers said that they ‘learnt valuable new skills through volunteering with Circles’ and 73% said that they ‘have been able to (or intend to) apply these new skills in my life outside of Circles’.
This demonstrates that the skills we teach here at Circles don’t just apply to the work people do with us but are also transferrable outside of the Circles setting. It is wonderful for us to know that not only are our brilliant volunteers doing amazing work with us directly but that they are also taking those skills away with them and applying them in a variety of different settings.
Many of our volunteers felt that our training was of high standard and we consistently receive positive feedback in our post training questionnaires. One volunteer commented “wonderfully experienced and informative trainers, approachable and helpful” and another stated that “Enjoyed every moment, been on lots of courses and this was one of the best”.
When conducting supervision recently one of our coordinators was delighted to be told:
“The training I had with Circles South West is the best training I have ever been on”.
Feedback like this is such a joy for the team to hear as the training programme has been finely tuned over the years and has been very much a collaborative effort from everyone here at Circles South West.
As well as the training and skill that out volunteers receive they also have access to our Rewards Gateway.
With access to this our volunteers can search through a huge variety of savings and discounts offers, all of which help ease those day to day expenses. One volunteer told us recently that
“I’ve been using it regularly to save money at Morrisons and a few other shops, which is great, but today I also managed to save £40 on an AirBnB booking, which is awesome!”
We are delighted to be able to help our volunteers this way. Our staff are also benefitting from the joys of the gateway with one staff member saying
“I have a 4% off card with Tesco and 7% with M&S, I use them all the time! I’ve also managed to save £40 on AirBnB and £10 on a roof rack I needed from Halfords.”
We all know that this cost of living crisis comes with big financial challenges and so it’s great to know that volunteers and staff alike benefit from their involvement with Circles South West by saving money on the everyday things, the special occasion and on all items in-between.
