Volunteering Role of the Month - Places of Welcome Host

Each month we highlight a volunteering role and tell you a little more about it, with the help of one of our current volunteers!

This month's role is Places of Welcome Host.

Places of Welcome is a national initiative aimed at providing a network of community venues where anyone can go to find a friendly face for a cuppa and a chat. By becoming a Places of Welcome Host, you could help us to provide a free social meeting place for those who may live alone or feel isolated, are new to the area or have little opportunity to meet other people in their neighbourhood.

Places of Welcome are somewhere everyone is welcome and it’s important that there should always be someone on hand ready to provide a smile and a greeting and to encourage people to drop by.

Our volunteer hosts Anne and Kath, who run Places of Welcome at Sutton-in-Ashfield tell us a bit more:

Anne: I saw Places of Welcome advertised just before Christmas. I’ve been volunteering in other places for 33 years so I’m used to volunteering, and I just thought “that’s something I could do!”. And it’s a pleasure to come here every week.

Kath: It’s nice to see people with smiles on their faces because a lot have lost loved ones during lockdown. I had a gentleman come today and he didn’t want to talk at first but I got him talking and he’s going to come back again. Two other ladies going through bad patches got talking – we try and pair them up with people with the same interests. If we see someone sitting on their own, we’ll go and talk to them and try and match them with somebody else. Because I know how I used to feel; I wouldn’t talk to anybody because I felt alone, but here Anne and I try and get people to mix and communicate, and that’s what they need after what everybody went through during lockdown.

Anne: If people come into the library while we’re here and we ask if they want a drink, they may join us. It’s word of mouth - if I see anybody that I talk to who is on their own I tell them about it and hope that they might drop in sometime, at least then they know we’re here.

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If you are interested in becoming a Places of Welcome Host, please click here for more details. Alternatively, if you'd just like to attend as a guest, you can find your nearest group here.