How often do you volunteer?

Wile E. Coyote · 10-06-2009 1:04pm #1

I'm looking to hopefully go on and complete an EMT course in the not too distant future and have read from lots of threads on here that everyone recommends joining the St Johns Ambulance, Red Cross, Order of Malta etc as they provide excellent training and lots of practice.

So I was wondering for all the voluteers currently associated with these organisations, how often do you volunteer? I don't want to join one of them and then not be able to attend as often as is expected.

Kwekubo · 10-06-2009 2:32pm

The voluntary aid societies all have quite reasonable time commitments. I'm with St John myself, and our local division meets for two hours once weekly on a Monday evening (8pm to 10pm) for training, lectures, planning of the week's public duties, and so on; this would probably be the minimum time commitment to keep up your skills. If you are doing a course such as First Aid or Emergency First Responder, or perhaps if you're revalidating an existing certificate, then that would usually be held on a different evening, or at the weekend over a few weeks.

After that, you can volunteer to go on duty at whatever events are taking place that week; the time commitment for these obviously varies from an hour or two to the whole day depending on the event. I'd say the average time most people give between unit meetings and public duty would be 4-8 hours per week, depending on the time of year, the location and how much spare time you have, but again this is very variable.

sgt.bilko · 10-06-2009 11:58pm

i'm also in St John, theres weeks when you could only be doing Divisional Training (2hrs) without going out on duty.

Then again you could be out 2/3 times a week over the summer. All in all, whichever org you join, you'll be made welcome. But PLEASE join us !!!!!!!

Also, whichever org you join, if you only make it 2/3 times a month , im sure they will still appreciate you.

How often do you volunteer?

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