#VolunteersWeek 2017 – volunteering together

This week is Volunteers’ Week, a celebration of the amazing work that people across the UK are doing, sharing their time and enthusiasm to help a range of projects and organisations – including Code Club!

This year we wanted to highlight the real difference Code Club hosts and leaders make in the lives of the children in their clubs, but also for themselves and the other adults they work with, learning new skills and building friendships and networks.

Lots of volunteers work together in small groups to run their clubs. There are a number of benefits to working together, including:

• Alternating weeks, or sharing a club so that there is always ‘volunteer cover’ if one person is unavailable
• Building confidence by working together to troubleshoot, to offer the children more hands-on support, and to bounce ideas off each other to tackle any bugs in the code

What our volunteers have to say

Stephen volunteers at the Plymouth Central Library Code Club, and he told us that while volunteering “started as just another way of being part of society, it has grown to be more of an extended family, all with the drive towards being coders, and many of the participants outshine my modest capabilities. Giving back to all participants has enriched my life.”

Katie started volunteering at the same club as Stephen, but once she gained the confidence to run a club on her own, she switched to helping out a new Code Club at Devonport Library. She explained that one benefit of volunteering together is that the club leaders can “bounce ideas off each other, and work together to put them into practice.”

Laura Norman, Development Officer for Plymouth City Council also commented that “our Code Club volunteers and library staff involved in Code Club regularly stay in touch. We even have our own group on Slack as a way of sharing ideas and information. All the volunteers and staff work well together as we share a common interest in tech, education and fun!”

How to get involved

If you are interested in volunteering at a club, visit our website to learn more and sign up: www.codeclub.org.uk/start-a-club