Where are all the interesting volunteering roles?

As the New Year rolled in, I did my usual routine of trying to come up with some resolutions, only this year I was determined to think of some I might actually keep.

I discarded the usual ‘eat less cake’ and ‘exercise more’ and looked instead towards ‘volunteer’.

Ok, so I wasn’t entirely new to volunteering – I’d fostered cats for a few months through a local animal charity and collected for Barnado’s along my street a few times in the past, but this time it was different. I wanted to commit to something more regularly.

So, I typed volunteering into Google and eagerly awaited the perfect volunteering opportunity.

Sadly, it wasn’t that easy. I may have been naïve in approaching my search but I was struck by the lack of different opportunities available.

I’m not green-fingured so that ruled out gardening. My foot-eye-ball coordination is sadly poor so football coach wasn’t for me. Maths isn’t my strong point so that crossed out the numerous trustee/accountant roles the charities were crying out for. I was also struck by the number of full-time jobs that I would expect would be paid, and as I’m employed full-time they wouldn’t work for me.

My ideal of working for an animal charity was also quickly dismissed as they already have plenty of volunteers to come and cuddle the animals.

Finally, after a long search, I happened upon a few roles I felt I could help with. Namely, delivering shopping or library books to the elderly, keeping them company and occasionally chaperoning them to the doctor. I can’t commit to much time-wise , but hopefully the little I can do will make a little difference.

I appreciate that volunteer roles shouldn’t necessarily be designed to excite those who don’t currently offer their time and services, but I’m not surprised, given the lack of diversity in the roles on offer, that I currently don’t have a single friend who actually does any volunteering, Maybe I’m not looking in the right places, so feel free to point me in the right direction if I’m wrong. Where should someone look for interesting and different volunteering opportunities?