Volunteer Opportunities

The Centre at St Paul's runs a number of regular  activities  which rely on the commitment and enthusiasm of volunteers. The latter  come in all shapes and and ages and from many different walks of life. Some are members of the congregation of St Paul's or  the local community. Some offer their services through the Volunteer Centre or Volunteers Plus. Others are overseas students or their partners who are spending a few months in Cambridge before going back home.  Recently for example, we have had volunteers from Austria, Belgium, Spain, the United States, Nigeria, Norway, Chile, Japan and Portugal as well as from the UK.

 From left to right: Pat from Cambridge, Rodney from Cambridge, Margaret from Cambridge and Alice from Phoenix, Arizona

The main activities at the Centre which rely on volunteers are:

Thursday Coffee Morning

Thursday Lunch

Friday Lunch Club

Thursday Coffee Morning 

This activity takes place  every Thursday from 10 a.m. Helping out at Coffee Morning simply means serving tea, coffee and biscuits.

Thursday Lunch

This is a small lunch for people with mental health issues or  who are socially isolated. Volunteers help with food preparation, serving and clearing up meals and chatting with group members.  At present the group has roughly 15 members, most of whom attend 3 out of every 4 weeks - and up to 8 volunteers/members of staff. 

 We always need more volunteers on Thursdays, to help with food preparation, chat to guests and supervise clearing away afterwards.  Agnes, picture below with husband Martin and daughter Audrey was our regular Thursday cook until June 2007 when she and her family moved to Singapore.  Agnes produced a mouthwatering range of soups, puddings and birthday cakes, all much appreciated by our Thursday regulars.

                     Left: : Agnesand family (from Indonesia via Philadelphia PA)       Right: Audrey and Agnes with volunteers

 Friday Lunch Club

Lunch Club runs every Friday from 12 - 2pm, offering a home-cooked main course and pudding for around 50 elderly people from all over Cambridge. We pride ourselves on cooking nourishing food from fresh ingredients and not stinting on the quantity. In fact several people eat at least two full meals every Friday.

Lunch Club is run by volunteers who help out anything from once a term to once a week. Roughly speaking their jobs can be divided into the following categories:

• Cook: responsible for choice of main dish, cooking it and supervising kitchen volunteers. Regular favourites include cottage pie, beef stew and roast pork 
• Dessert cook: someone to make the second course or pudding. Can be the same person who prepares the first course. Puddings can also be made the night before, brought in on Friday morning and re-heated. Apple crumble, fresh fruit salad, gooseberry fool, jam roly poly and spotted dick are some of the dishes that members really enjoy.
• Assistant cook: responsible for supervising preparation of potatoes and vegetables
• Helper(s): able to turn their hand to anything as and when required, including preparing vegetables and laying tables
• Washers up:  last but by no means least ...

                Young Mr Grace says "You've all done very well!"

We constantly require volunteers in all these categories. If you don't feel you could take on cooking for 50 people, you can make an equally important contribution by doing one of the other jobs.

Apart from anything else, Lunch Club is fun. It's a great social occasion which is thoroughly enjoyed by everyone who attends. And the grub's not bad either.  
   

Other Opportunities

Other volunteering opportunities arise during the year such as gardening and DIY. If you are interested in volunteering at Coffee Morning, Thursday or Friday Lunch or any other kind of activity, please contact the office on 01223 576899 or email office@centrestpauls.org.uk