Welcome to Community & Voluntary Services Cheshire East (CVS), as an organisation we support the voluntary, community and faith sector with many different services but we may be better known publicly as the accredited Volunteer Centre for Cheshire East.
As a Volunteer Centre, we host a free online volunteer recruitment service for our community, and we are very pleased to be working closely with Cheshire College South & West to help and enable students to find work experience placements through volunteering using these services.
The opportunities featured on our website are advertised by the respective organisation looking for that volunteer's support. Some of these organisations are small and local, some are very well known and national, all deliver services within Chesire East. On average we have around 100-150 opportunities available at any one time. New opportunities are added each week and there is a huge variety of roles and activities to choose from, each offering a fantastic level of work experience.
Registering
The first step would be to register with CVS by filling out our volunteer registration form, this will create you an account for our site and from there you can search and apply for opportunities directly via our current opportunities page.
You can filter your searches by town, activity, cause and age, the age filter has just been implemented so not all opportunities will feature in this filter (Oct 18), but do please apply for the role you feel best suits your needs unless a specific restriction has been stated.
Applying & Planning Ahead
Visit our current opportunities page to search and apply for a volunteer placement. To find a volunteer placement in good time and that will fit with your studies we recommend that you apply for an opportunity at least 3-4 weeks ahead of the time you intend to volunteer. A lot of Cheshire East organisations in the charity sector have staff that work on a part-time basis so your response may take up to 2 weeks, and once you have been accepted for a volunteer placement there may also be an induction or informal interview needed by the charity you would be volunteering with before your placement starts (dependant on the type of role and organisation).
Once you have applied for an opportunity your information gets sent to the advertising charity group who in turn will respond to you directly. We ask each advertising organisation to respond to applying volunteers within 10 working days.
If after 10 working days you haven't received a response, contact us at CVS (details at the foot of the page) and we will chase your application with that group.
If you have any support needs that you feel may prevent you or someone you may know from registering and getting into volunteering. We can help with a one to one volunteering support session in tackling any challenges and finding the right opportunity for you. Call us on 01270 763 100 and talk to one of our Team.
CVS Volunteer's eBulletin
You can subscribe to our volunteer's eBulletin as you register or you can do so independently here. The Volunteer's eBulletin is published every 6 weeks (roughly once a month) and it features news, updates, discussions from around Cheshire East's voluntary community, projects and events you can get involved with as a volunteer and a selection of new opportunities you can apply for.
We also advertise volunteer opportunities on social media, follow us on twitter (@CVSCE) or Facebook (@CVSCheshireE) for daily volunteering opportunities.
We at CVS wish you good luck with your studies, we are glad to be supporting you at this stage of your education. If you have any question, queries or issues with using our service, please don't hesitate to get in touch.