Making A Difference Volunteer Update

Our New Hospital at Home project will be delivered in the Welwyn and Hatfield, Broxbourne, East Herts, North Herts and Stevenage areas of Hertfordshire, and will help individuals stay at home while monitoring their vitals, rather than attending appointments every day. This can relieve pressure on the NHS, as well as keeping clients comfortable at home.

We are looking for volunteers who can devote some time out of their day to attend home visits with individuals in the community who need some help using their Doccla kits. These kits can monitor vitals, and allow patients to be monitored from home, rather than attending time consuming medical appointments. Each client will need one or two visits a day, for up to two weeks including weekends, and this task can be shared amongst multiple volunteers to allow everyone to work this activity around their schedule.

These will be individuals who have been recently discharged from hospital or who are being closely monitored by health professionals, and need a little bit of help. 

This kit is very simple to use, and we will give you full training on how to help individuals use it. Volunteers will need to be DBS checked and we can arrange this. If you might be interested in this activity please get in touch via email  or give us a call on 01727 649980.

With another year passed, it is time for our annual survey for clients. This survey allows us to check in with our clients, as well as monitor feedback which we can then use to inform and improve our services. 

In order to complete this survey, we need some help calling everyone. If you have some spare time, and would be happy to call some clients and conduct a short survey with them, please give us a call on 01727 649900 or email us. 

We will give you all the training you need for this role. This activity would need to be completed in our main office (1st Floor, Ver House, Park Estate, Frogmore, St. Albans, AL2 2WH), and we will have a full desk set up and landline for you to use.

You will be surrounded by friendly staff members who will be more than happy to support you or answer any questions you have. Just drop us a call now if you would like to know more!

Throughout the week, volunteer drivers use our minibuses to complete shopper bus trips for clients around the Hertsmere and three rivers areas. These trips are really important to our clients, and allow them to complete their shopping as well as maintain their independence and have some time each week to chat with their friends. 

Some of our clients need a little bit of extra support to join these outings, and so we are looking for volunteers who can help support these clients as bus buddies. This role would see you accompanying you supporting them with things like escorting them from their door to the bus, and accompanying them around the shop if they would like. 

You can email us or call us on 01727 649980 to find out more, or register your interest in this activity. Staff will be able to discuss the full schedule of our shopper bus trips, and discuss with you which destinations and days would work best for you. 

As you may know, our Leeming Road hub is currently closed, so Computers and a Cuppa Borehamwood will temporarily be running on Wednesdays from 1pm to 4pm at Aberford Hall community Centre (Aberford Road, Borehamwood WD6 1PN), and on Fridays from 10am to 2pm at Organ Hall Community Centre (37 Bairstow Close, Borehamwood WD6 4TB) with our team member Rex. If you would like to join as a volunteer, please do reach out to us on 01727 649900 or email us here. 

Our other Computers and a Cuppa sessions will be running as usual, and we would welcome anyone who is interested in helping us provide these sessions to reach out to us via email to find out more.

If you know some people who may benefit from these sessions, please feel free to forward the session information to them. These sessions operate on a drop in basis, are free, and any one is welcome, whether they are just beginning to learn about tech, or have some prior experience. If you belong to any clubs or groups you would like to advertise these sessions in, please feel free to contact us for any posters you might like to share with others or place on your community/ notice boards. 

Last weekend, our volunteer driver took the nurses to Alexandra Palace in London. Our volunteer driver picked nurses up from both Lister Hospital and Watford General Hospital and then headed to London. They were guided around Alexandra Palace as well as Muswell Hill and explored all the iconic scenery, unique shops and local restaurants.

It was a fantastic opportunity to show some new international arrivals an interesting local attraction, and to give them the opportunity to relax outside of work and make friends. We are planning on running lots more trips throughout the rest of the year, with up to two trips running for each hospital we support.

You do not have to know lots about the specific area, you would just need to be able to take the nurses to the main locations (we can give you directions beforehand), and have a friendly chat with the nurses. These trips are informal, and serve as an opportunity for the new arrivals to get to know one another, and also gives them a chance to explore some fantastic tourist areas of the UK like Stratford, Brent Cross, Windsor and Cambridge. If you would be interested in joining a free day trip, and meeting new people, please contact us email us or call 01727 649900.

We have had lots of new nurses register with us from the Watford General Hospital, and many of these arrivals have requested nurse buddies. These new nurses need some help learning about their local area and having some support while they settle in.

If you have some local knowledge of Watford (you do not have to be based here, but it would be beneficial if you would be able to travel here to meet the nurse in person) and would like to help these new arrivals, please do email us or give us a call on 01727 649900. 

The Multiply project aims to improve people's numeracy skills by offering maths-boosting sessions, on topics such as basic numeracy, shopping on a budget, and family budget, and these sessions will help people in their everyday lives.

We are looking for volunteers to become Number Ninjas. Number Ninjas will help us:

• Identify the learning needs of local residents
• Engage and refer suitable candidates for tailored tutoring support.

If you are interested in this opportunity, email us or telephone 01727 649950.

We are running Ukrainian support meetings, so we are looking for volunteers to help facilitate these.

You can find out more about this opportunity here.

You can email or call us on 01727 649900 to find out more.

Training courses are available to our volunteers all year round. You can learn about all the topics we cover and register for dated sessions by clicking here.

New Volunteer Expenses Claim Form

We have a new volunteer expense request form. If you don't have it, please email us and we will send it to you.

For Shopping Delivery and Prescription Collection Expenses

• To claim expenses, please sign up to our dashboard and upload your expenses there. Click here to create a login using the same email address that you originally signed up with. You will then see a list of your completed and pending activities.
• Please submit expense claims the same week that you carried out your shop, and if appropriate, provide a photo of your receipt. If an expense is not claimed in a timely manner it can lead to a client going into arrears, which can cause them stress and confusion. We appreciate your help with this.
• If this is your first shop, you will first need to email us your bank details  so you can be reimbursed.

For Drivers, Litter Pickers and Other Roles' Expenses

• You will have been sent an expense claim form when you confirmed your job. To claim your expenses, please complete this and return it to the sender.