OUR VOLUNTEERS MAKE HAVING A SHOP POSSIBLE
When the previous village shop closed it had a big impact on the community. We lost a meeting place and a vital community service. Soon after the shop closed a group of local residents got together and decided to create a local shop that was owned, staffed and run for the benefit of the local community. The community shop was born.
Key to ensuring that Bishop Wilton has a viable community shop is volunteering. Our shop is almost exclusively staffed by volunteers from the local community. This means profits from sales can be invested back into the costs of running the shop for the community.
We are looking for more volunteers right now.
BENEFITS OF VOLUNTEERING
Volunteering has been proven to be good for your health and wellbeing, as well as providing benefits to your career progression. We have a great model where you can take a shift that matches your availability and can fit around a busy schedule.
By volunteering at Bishop Wilton Community Shop you will:
Meet new people and make friends
Whether chatting to customers in the shop or volunteering alongside others in the village, you will have a chance to be social and meet people from across the community.
Do good by keeping the shop & cafe open
Without volunteers we wouldn’t have a shop. By volunteering you will ensure you and others can take advantage of a local shop & cafe.
Help your career
Having volunteering roles on your CV makes you more employable and shows potential employers you have strong core values.
Learn new skills
a volunteering role is a good chance to learn and develop new skills.
HAVE FUN
The volunteering team has a number of social events and volunteering in the shop is made as easy and fun as possible
Who are our volunteers?
Our volunteers come from a wide cross section of the community. We have teenagers, retirees and everything in between. We have doctors, teachers, engineers, artists, beauticians, students, accountants and designers. Some are retired and have lots of time, some work full-time and have young children.
It really is a wide range of people and we have a way to volunteer that will work for most people.
HOW CAN YOU VOLUNTEER?
Typically our volunteers take shifts working in the shop. This involves working the till, making drinks, stocking the shelves and general day to day tasks.
We provide full training and you will be on shift with a more experienced volunteer initially to ensure you can learn the ropes.
An average shift is 2.5 hours. Many volunteers take one shift per week, some every other week and some as and when they have time. To take a shift you select it on our online rota – so you have the control of when you volunteer with us.
We also have a range of other volunteering opportunities in other areas such as marketing, maintenance, ordering, cleaning and events.
Our typical volunteering roles
Front of House Volunteer
This is where we have the most volunteers. Our FoH people work in the shop serving customers, stacking shelves, taking deliveries, serving drinks. Full training and support is given.
Cleaners
We have a formidable group of volunteers that make sure the shop is kept clean. The cleaning team do a monthly and 6-monthly deep clean of the shop on top of our staff cleaner who does the regular tasks. Alongside this, we have a team of apron and cloth washers who are essential to making sure our hygiene is good.
Back Office
Some volunteers have specific skills that are useful to certain areas of the business and these people help in those areas that are not Front of House or cleaning. These include marketing, social media, maintenance and bookkeeping.
First Aider
A few of our volunteers are also nominated First Aiders that we can call on if needed. If you have a First Aid qualification, you might want to join us.
Committee Member
A small team of committee members are voted in to run the shop on behalf of the community. A range of skills and experience is required. Any member can put themselves forward to be elected to the committee.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Our volunteers are aged 14 and upward, although 14-16 year olds must work with a parent or agreed adult.
Full training is given and support is there while you are on shift. The till isn’t as daunting as it looks and we have a supportive no-blame policy for all our volunteers. There are also other volunteering roles where the till is not used.
Every shift helps us. If your work or circumstances mean that you can only decide the day before if you can work or you can only work here and there, then that’s fine and easily booked with our online shift system. Just sign up for what you can do.
That’s great too! Sign up for as many shifts as you like!
Yes, we would! Just have a chat to us and there may be lots of opportunities to take on roles in specific areas such as marketing.
Yes – we’d love to hear from you and you may also be interested in our careers programme where you can learn more about our business for your CV.
Yes – it might be that our careers programme might be useful for you too so you can have some specific things to add to your CV.
HOW DO I APPLY?
You can register your interest in volunteering by popping into the shop and chatting to any of our volunteers. They will take your details and pass them onto our volunteer team who will be in touch.
You can also submit a message here and this will be passed on to the team.