volunteering (9)

have you ever done any volunteer work?what type?what did u get out of the experience?

Hi reolvine,
The answer is yes...fetes, street reach, massaging feet in nursing homes and the most life changing experience of all was a week spent in Murphy's Creek and Granthem during the QLD floods. Never have I come across a collective of people all in one place for one purpose. (Still gives me goosebumps). People from all walks of life, religions etc put it all aside to help fellow Australians in trouble. And the spirit of those people needing help was life changing. They were always saying for eg,..don't worry about us..our neighbour is way worse off help them first. Amazingingly strong people...ALL of You guys
Reolvine...I have never worked so hard in my life but I came away rejuvinated....I had not thought about myself, my appearance or any other thing for 1 whole week...my only thought was helping out.

sounds like a good feeling

My father was in Rotary when I was growing up and it did involve the family a lot with all the things he was involved in.

In my later youth, I was a founding member of a local Rotaract Club. As well as the usual dinner and drinking (much) each week, we did a lot of community projects - Barnardos in particular. Great when you are single and have plenty of spare time. Although at that time, I was also going with ex #1 and she was involved. But as family commitments take up more and more time, so does available time.

I have been involved with RoadSafe Victoria for about 9 years, mainly because work is also involved. It does take up some of my professional time and also into my own time to assist with out of hours projects. Then again, road safety is one of my things.

I have been involved directly with 3 RoadSafe groupos over the time. 1st involved a lot of community members while the 2nd had only 1 community person as the areas involved considered it was Council/State responsibilty for road safety.

Working now with Gippsland RoadSafe, they have a very strong community participation and the volunteer work they do is impressive. Even the coppers spend there off-time doing stuff for the organisation.

The primary areas covered are motorcycle safety, bicycle education and working with learner-drivers in the L2P program (probably the most important).

The L2P program requires volunteers to dedicate enough time to teach the learner to achieve their 120 hours before going for their license.

I was a member of the SES (State Emergency Service) in QLD back in the day. I learnt a lot such as first aid, knots, radio communications, using a chainsaw, tarping roofs, abseiling, admin, fire training, aerial search, bush search, dealing with the media and making a lot of good friends. I was quite a young person of the group as I could only join once I was 16 but I had been going since 15. I did a lot of cyclone cleanup efforts and aerial searches. I also did a lot of practical training with abseiling and did freefall off the Baron Gorge Bridge and also a helicopter as well as some cliff jumping and participated in regular exercises (fake scenarios). I had some of the best times of my life when I was doing it and ended up having to lead teams of people in crisis situations at a very young age.

up until the last 2 yrs i always did volunteer work in some way.. in groups or just individual assist...


actually miss it


but so busy of late that i just dont have time..

i think u r talking about what i was thinking.............u dont get paid in money for these things but there is definately a pay off in making friends, learning new things, giving back etc etc........it has shown me that work isnt all about money(or maybe it shouldnt be)