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Back to Volunteer Resources page
As a small organisation, CINI UK greatly values the contribution of our volunteers. Your support helps to make a practical difference to work to help poor mothers and children in India.
As a volunteer, you will be offered the opportunity to further your knowledge of international development issues - and encouraged to share this knowledge with your friends and contacts. You will learn about the organisation and operation of a small charity. You will also have the chance to hone or develop valuable transferable skills such as fundraising, information management, streamlining systems, public relations, human resources, research, or project monitoring and evaluation - that will help to make the charity more effective. |
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Volunteers are expected to dedicate at least 2-3 days per week to their work for CINI UK for a period of at least 12 weeks. We ask this in order to make taking on volunteers worthwhile both for you and for the charity. Exceptions are usually only made to this in the case of volunteers having specialist skills needed by the charity on an ad hoc basis.
CINI UK will provide you with internal and external training opportunities. We also endeavour to provide quality feedback on tasks undertaken to enable you to continually improve your skills. An online calendar of free training opportunities is available in the volunteer section of the website. Please consult this regularly in order to make the most of opportunities for learning while volunteering at CINI UK.
You are asked to read through this volunteer handbook before starting your volunteer placement with CINI UK. It's very important to familiarise yourself with this handbook as this guide can be the starting point of a successful and mutually beneficial relationship between you and CINI UK.
At your first meeting with Padma you will be given a password, with which you can get access to the volunteer section of our website.
In the volunteer resources section of the website, you will find a copy of the strategic plan. This is essential reading for all volunteers as it will enable you to identify how your role fits within the big picture and guides and shapes all our work.
On your first day at CINI, you will meet with Padma who will provide you with an initial task list. You will also be shown how to access the CINI work plan through which future tasks will be assigned. Please always feel free to ask for clarification regarding any assigned tasks.
One month in to your placement, there will be a review session to go through how things are going. Training needs will be discussed and this is also an opportunity for you to ask about other areas of CINI’s work in which you are interested in gaining more experience.
Volunteers will be invited to the monthly team meetings, which are held in the office. These are a valuable opportunity to get to know your fellow volunteers, learn about CINI UK's wider activities and about CINI's work on the ground, and contribute to the planning of future activities.
Team members are asked to support one another and provide peer to peer training where possible.
We also have occasional office socials (currently twice a year) and regularly go out to lunch together.
Under the CINI UK folder, there is a folder called Volunteer Working Documents. Please save any documents you are not yet ready to save in the appropriate places on the main filing system here.
Copies of all final trust appeals and corporate appeals should be saved in the main archive of the trust or corporate fundraising folders so that we have complete soft-copy records of appeals sent.
The same goes for events, PR and HR, there is a folder for each and all documents relating to this should be saved in the appropriate place. We also need to keep good paper records.
Please also keep your emails in good order so that useful content can be easily accessed by the person who inherits your email account.
Having good records of work previously done means we can build on our accumulated knowledge.
CINI UK practices semi-flexible working hours, Monday to Friday. Our core office hours are 10am until 4pm. Lunch break is one hour. Your preferred start and finish times should be discussed with your supervisor, to help with timetabling, we ask you to try to maintain a regular slot of hours and avoid scheduling non-CINI UK commitments inside these hours where possible. If you are sick or planning a holiday, please let us know. We may be able to get someone else in to use your desk.
We advise you do a regular slot when working from home as this helps with structuring your time. But obviously home working provides scope for greater flexibility.
Volunteers are bound by the same requirements for confidentiality as paid staff. Details of our supporters are private and should not be shared with other organisations or used for any other purposes.
We value our volunteers and want to ensure that there are no barriers to volunteers on low incomes getting involved.
CINI UK is happy to provide volunteers with basic expenses such as stamps, telephone call and stationery. Travel expenses can also be given for every day of six hours or more worked from the office. In order to claim expenses, an expenses form should be requested from the office.
Dress code: Volunteers are expected to be smart casual when working in the office. When scheduled to work at public events or important meetings smart attire should be worn.
Kitchen: Volunteers should feel free to use the office kitchen. Tea and coffee are provided. Please leave our working environment in a tidy state and wash up any used mugs or plates.
Office tidiness: As we hot desk, it is important that you put away all paperwork at the end of the day so that you can find it on your return and others can use the same workspace.
Emailing big documents: use www.yousendit.com
Login details - Account name: info@ciniuk.org, Password: dynamite
We hope you won't need to use this section! At CINI UK we strive to provide you with high quality information, training and assistance. However, if you feel that you are not satisfied with your placement, please let your volunteer supervisor or our HR volunteer know your problem, and we will try to resolve it.
Volunteers who behave in a way which does not meet CINI UK's standards or policies may have their offer of volunteering withdrawn by CINI UK.
We ask all volunteers to give us at least 2 weeks notice before ending their volunteer placement with CINI UK (more notice would be even better!).
This is because your work is vital and we need time to advertise for a replacement volunteer and ensure that handover notes have been written up and loose ends tied as much as possible.
We encourage our alumni to stay in touch and would love it if you can continue to come to our socials and update us on how your are getting on.
Padma Moorjani (Director)
Tel: + 44(0) 207 582 1400
Mob: + 44(0) 7816 6767 88
padmamoorjani@cini.org.uk
Don't forget to read CINI UK's strategy for an insight into how your volunteering efforts fit into CINI's wider work!
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