Volunteering Opportunities

Disability Watford is run entirely by volunteers most of whom are people with disabilities themselves.

At this time of the pandemic, our volunteers’ safety is of the utmost importance to us and for those reasons our office is closed for visitors and meetings are by appointment only.  But our volunteers are still working from home.

We are always looking for help from disabled and able-bodied volunteers.  Please find below our current opportunities.

Trustees/Directors

We need some Trustees/Directors and especially if you have a disability or care for someone who is disabled to run the organization.  This is not rocket science, just the willingness to help those with a disability and access to a phone and/or a computer.  Help, training and guidance will be provided if needed.

We hold 4 trustee meetings a year and one Annual General Meeting; we don’t have any paid staff so help in some other areas will be asked for at times.

Although not essential, it would be helpful if you have knowledge around disability, running a charity, and fund-raising would be especially helpful going forward.

Secretary

This role involves taking minutes of meetings, arranging meetings, acting as external events coordinator and recommending/arranging DW participation in events run by others.

You will need good organisational, communication and interpersonal skills for this role.

Social Media Volunteer

This role involves setting up and maintaining Disability Watford’s social media presence.

You will need to be familiar with using one or more social media platforms including Facebook and Twitter.

Website Volunteer

This role involves keeping our newly launched website up to date. At times you will have to consult with our website designer on how to do this and with the Chair of the Trustees on what content to put on.

You will need to have good computer skills and experience of working on websites.

The time commitment is ideally an hour or two a couple of times a month. Sometimes there will be only a few updates to do and other times slightly more.

This role can be mainly be undertaken from home, but as our website is designed to be accessible there will be times that the work will have to be checked or tweaked in our Watford Town Centre office as the office computers have specialist Screen Reading and magnification software on them.

Promotions Volunteer

From time to time we need help designing leaflets, banners and other merchandising.

You will need to have good computer skills including graphic design.

It is most likely that you will be needed for short piece of intensive work, for instance when we have a new project or we are changing details.  This work can be undertaken from home.

Annual Fundraising Quiz or Bingo Night Volunteer

This role will need organisational and promotion skills.   The role can be time consuming at times of the event, but much of the work can be replicated from the previous year, so it is not normally arranging from scratch.
Much of this is via the telephone and email, therefore much of the work can be undertaken from home.

You will need to be a very organised person with good communication and interpersonal skills. Experience of organising fundraising events would be useful.

Disability Awareness Day (Event) Volunteer

This role will need organisational and promotion skills. The role can be time consuming at times of the event, but much of the work can be replicated from the previous year, so it is not normally arranging from scratch.
Much of this is via the telephone and email, therefore much of the work can be undertaken from home.

You will need to be a very organised person with good communication and interpersonal skills. Experience of organising will be useful.

Public Forums Volunteer

We hold 3-4 public Watford Disability Forums a year. These are normally on different subjects relevant to people with a disability. For instance in the last year we have had the Elected Mayor of Watford come along to tell us about the changes in Watford, an officer from Hertfordshire County Council telling our members of changes to their benefits etc.

Although the venue is normally booked for the whole year in advance, to undertake this role you will have to:

  • Find & book people of interest to speak to the meeting.
  • Maintain an up-to-date mailing list of possible attendees.
  • Send out mailings inviting those on the mailing list to the meetings – this will be done by email and post.
  • Assist at the forum meetings, which are held in the afternoon at Watford Town Hall. The room is set up for us but you will need to help the people attending by serving drinks, assisting to and from the room etc.

You will need to be a very organised person with good communication and interpersonal skills. You will need to be a confident user of computers.

This role can be undertaken mainly from home via the telephone and email.

Outside Events Volunteer

From time to time we attend events run by different organisations. This role will not take up to much time just the need to find events that will be suitable for us to attend, book the stand, arranging items we might need for that particular event, finding out who is available to staff the stall  and calling around to see if transport needs arranging for volunteers.

Most of this can be done from home via the telephone and email.

DW Office Volunteers

The Disability Watford office is not normally very busy but we would like more volunteers to staff the office so we can open the office up as a drop-in for our members etc.

You will need to be an organised person with good communication and interpersonal skills.

This role would need some sort of regular commitment, even if it is once every month.

The role will involve being in the office, answering the telephone, doing the filing etc.