A recent-ish thread prompted some discussion of the differences between ‘traditional’ volunteering (for want of a better word) vs doing unpaid work (ie that should properly be paid by an employer). Leaving that interesting issue to one side, I wondered what ‘traditional’ volunteering activities (eg for a charity/association/local group/informally etc) some SF members actually do, whether in France or elsewhere?
For my part, I’ve cleared scrub on the weekends for the past 25 years, firstly on various Commons and Heaths in Buckinghamshire and Essex, and subsequently from the steep slopes of a nearby Norman chateau (until a 'bit of accident" on said slopes!). On much safer grounds, I now man a cash desk at the local clothes bank, pick up litter from the forest, and recently have started to help put up special plastic barriers to prevent toads, hell bent on getting to breeding grounds, crossing a busy local road. We guide them into buckets that are then carried across the road to their breeding grounds beyond. See online photo. I’d steer well clear of that tall chap in the high viz!
For those who do volunteer, It would be really interesting to hear about your particular activities, and any pluses/minuses, if you’re willing to share the information…
Don’t know if this qualifies George.
I am a member of a local branch of a nationwide benevolant association which visits and pursues various activities with people who feel isolated or lonely for whatever reason.
The majority of the people we help are the elderly who feel lonely with, in most cases health issues which makes it even more difficult for them. I currently visit and accompany three people, two ladies and a gent in their 80s. We have four meals throughout the year plus other outings and workshops ie games afternoons etc etc. I did accompany a fourth person, an English chap as it happens but who sadly passed away aged only 71 .
Most branches in France are looking for volunteers, it’s hard work requiring loadsa patience but rewarding in its own way.
I help out in a recyclerie which is about helping people back into work. So they like to have older volunteers alongside the paid staff as we can provide a bit of an example or balance I guess. Currently on a pause tho’ as the woman I was most often paired with was a nightmare and I don’t volunteer to have afternoons of unpleasantness. The staff contracts are generally up to a year, so I’ll go back when she’s gone.
Also help out with the commune planting, and join in with the usual stuff like litter picking. And am a great washer upper for our foyer rural marche festive. Normally have 400 odd walkers, and about half take the option of a 3 course meal.
I was doing more but health has got in the way at the moment.
When we arrived in our village I left my name and details at the Mairie as an all-help-considered volunteer. Besides general willingness, I hold a CELTA (Cambridge version of TEFL) qualification to teach English to non-English children, which I long ago obtained in Hong Kong to help me as a volunteer easing newly arrived immigrants from China into local schools.
Fast forward to our retirement in France….one day a local mother asked if I could help her son who needed better English. Before long I was also helping his brother and his girlfriend. One thing led to another and the local coiffeuse was recommending my free service for all village children seeking improvement in school English marks. This led me to acquaint myself with the joys (?!) of American English favoured by TOEIC. I realise that in a class of over 30 children there cannot be much opportunity for speaking, so this is where I can help them to communicate in English.
I love helping these children and young people navigate English and their young lives. Sometimes, they just come to see me for tea and a chat.
I think many people here know my activities as a benevole but, for those who don’t, I retired as an international lorry driver at the end of 2002 and for the next 8 years I filled my time with petanque in the afternoons and tea dances with my wife on Sundays, while at the same time fostering dogs.
But I really did miss life on the road, and the companionship I experienced in the evenings in various restaurants with other drivers of all nationalities.
So when, in November 2010 a dog rescue association called Hope, asked me to collect 2 dogs from The Lot and deliver them to departement Deux Sevres I jumped at the chance. Word got around surprisingly quickly and I have spent the last 15 years collecting and delivering dogs, and sometimes other animals (cats, foxes, baby wild boars, birds etc.) to the 4 farthest points (almost, not Finland, yet) of the then EU and loved every minute of it.
Slackened off a bit due to covid and later to my own increasing age, but still at it from time to time. The last one was Radko, a Dobermann from Agen to the Dordogne on the 8th of February and the next one will be another Dobie, Vega, from Claremont Ferrand to here. Date to be announced.
Sounds good fun, I’ve heard of HOPE. Don’t they have an ‘outlet’ in Confolens ? Helping animals is a bit like helping many elderly folk who can’t look after themselves. Luckily, the three people I directly support are relatively independant.
I held my HGV in the UK for years but had to re validate it when moving to France in the 80 s. I took the French test and passed but ironically never used it.
I’m not sure our association counts either but we run it on a voluntary basis and it is there to help anglophones and francophones improve their conversation abilities in the other’s language (so would follow on from the sort of thing @Susannah is doing.
It’s quite structured and does involve quite a bit of work but it seems to meet a need and people travel quite a distance to come to it.
It is possible they are still going but the founder was Siobhan Duckworth who was a member of Phoenix in the Dordogne. She continued to be a member of Phoenix but started Hope in order to directly raise funds in her own area of the 2 Sevres. It is many years now that she went back to live in Dorset but I do know she handed over the reins to others.
The name lives on here in my email records because I have 3 categories. PAD for Dobermanns, Phoenix for anything connected with them, and Hope for any other animal rescue contacts.
A bit puzzled by your HGV experience though, when I came here to live and work as a driver in '99 I just had to swap my licence, with all its categories, at the sub-prefecture and I was on the road at work the next day.
I’m volunteer for cultural events in the village comité des fetes, guignettes etc. Also I’m part of an association in the village called Cultivez’elay, which has the ambition to create and maintain a medieval garden open to the public & to be used as an educational aide, being a medieval garden the educational facettes are mainly, 1) culinary plants, crop rotation, composting, & all year abundance of food.
2) medicinal plants, one of the founding members in a pharmacist.
3 Dye plants, another founding member & the president is a local artist specializing in medieval art.
I also help le sucours populaire (this is more of a personal project) I grow vegetables for them, but not involved with any other of their activities yet… In the future, with the secours pop, I’d like to teach gardening to others, there are many unused gardens in Avallon & the surrounding villages.
Hello Peter,
I’m in Ribérac not far from Périgueux, we have quite a large British community in this area.
I speak French pretty well but the cultural differences might not be so easy to overcome.
Take care
Wendy
I bet there will already be English speaking volunteers as well as English speaking locals seeking help. If not, I’m sure your branch would appreciate the possibilities an English speaker could provide.
This is a low English speaking area though I did help an English chap until he passed away last year.
We have fortunately, a few volunteers who don’t actually visit people but instead help out with the organisational procedures etc.
I looked into volunteering with Cancer Support France, but it seemed that most of the volunteering work with that was admin or fundraising.
I used to be an occupational therapist so I’m keen to have the face to face contact again.
Best wishes
Wendy
I’m trying to secretly help our village’s barely active Association de Chateau. There’s not much left of the C11th fortress immediately above our house that once controlled river traffic on the Lot, but once a year a few elderly villagers present a well-intended, but dire display in the village church of faded A4 copies of archival material about the village.
I want to help them deepen this research and improve the visual quality of the annual presentation (I used to lecture in architectural history) but at the same time don’t want to be treading on anyone’s toes. No-one appears to have examined the C19th photos of the village to establish its pre-photographic history with research on the ground and in the Departmental archive, they’ve simply copied archival records or relied on anecdotal hand-me-downs.
So at present I’m quietly preparing a stock of better quality explanatory visual material to give to them well in advance of the next week-end du patrimoine.
I was a conseilleur municipal for 2 mandats until Brexit conditions made representation impossible. I also make sound recordings for the “Association Jean_Claude Guidarini.” We aim to perpetuate the memory of one of Toulous’ finest organists, who sadly left us in 2020.
If you ask any local associations they’ll tell you that volunteers have, since covid, become scarcer. I am treasurer of an association linked to a riding club. We run the buvette and are the charitable link to enable grant aid to a project to run a ‘section equestre’. I accompany the children from the school to the riding centre. Many secondary schools in France run ‘sections’. These are often rugby, football, basket ball and enable those children selected to pursue that sport during the lesson time that would have been free periods. What isn’t generally known is that these sections depend entirely on voluntary financial contributions as they are not funded by education nationale.
I also spend an hour a week in a tiny local school teaching English which is great fun.
I used to teach English to adults as a volunteer, but baulked when I was expected to pay a cotisation including insurance to the association instead of being given a ‘membre de droit’ exoneration. Rant over!
Volunteers are generally welcomed with open arms, particularly when it comes to having a quorum at an AGM.
We founded an association to open a charity shop in Chabanais. La Collecte to support the Mairie and raise funds for our local CCAS ( Le rôle d’un CCAS ou d’un CIAS consiste à lutter contre l’exclusion, à veiller à l’accessibilité des aides sociales, à apporter un soutien et un accompagnement aux personnes handicapées et aux personnes âgées).
Shop is supported by donations from locals & our 3 open days per week are well used to buy ‘new’ clothes - or just come by and have a chat. Volunteers are from all corners of the globe - Mexican, Canadian/Hungarian, German, French, Scottish, English.
