My name is Charlotte and I am currently a student at Newcastle University and a volunteer for Shared Interest. I started volunteering this summer and have really enjoyed attending events and working in the office with the staff. Rachel, the Volunteer Manager, was kind enough to organise a week’s work experience for me so I could gain a greater insight into the departments within the organisation that I have an interest in.

On my first morning I was given a tour around the office to meet everyone and learn a little bit about their role within the society. Everyone made me feel very welcome.

In the afternoon I was introduced to the environment team. I already know Rachel, so really I was just introduced to Steve! Although there is only the two of them they have been hard at work figuring out how to off-set Shared Interests carbon emissions for this year. They have decided on a tree planting project to replace the paper they have used in the office which according to Steve is 11 trees! Throughout the week I helped Rachel with organising this event

I finished the day off by talking to Margaret about working in HR which I am considering as a career after my degree. She is involved in recruiting new staff and maintaining the well-being of existing staff. I learned that part of her role is very similar to an agony aunt, as she deals with any worries in the office!

I spent my second day at SCAN. SCAN is Newcastle Universities’ volunteer centre for students and they will be helping me and Rachel organise the tree planting. We organised transport, refreshments, equipment and the venue. We delegated the remainder of the jobs between us which we will work on this month. I will be in charge of finding out which trees can be planted in October and where to source them from. I will have to work within a budget which will involve a bit of ringing around to find the best deal!

I have spent most of the third day with the marketing team, another area of work which greatly interests me. They allowed me to sit in on two meetings.  One was a team meeting and it was interesting to hear what everyone has been working on recently and how they are making progress with it. The other meeting was about the changes that Adam had made to the website – which looks great!

I spoke to Kerrey and Stacey during the day who are both involved in marketing. They showed me some packs that were getting sent out to members, and ones that could be sent to inquiring members. They looked great and will be very useful for current and future investors. They explained the process in which the packs are made; this involves working with designers and printers outside of Shared Interest and is much more time consuming than I thought!

I learned that marketing needs creative thinkers, and am now even more interested in pursuing it after my degree!

On Day four Rachel asked me to attend a volunteer conference on ‘volunteering in a big society’ with her. I found this very interesting from a volunteer’s point of view and found out some of the difficulties with recruiting and managing young volunteers. It was a real insight into Rachel’s line of work and I thoroughly enjoyed the day – despite the rather beige buffet!

On my final day I returned to SCAN. I helped Phil sign people up to volunteer and explained to people how volunteering can benefit them as well as others. Rachel came with me to promote Shared Interest and we were able to hand out some of her business cards to students that were interested in becoming a Shared Interest volunteer.

This week has been very useful in helping me decide which career path to take after university. I am still a little torn between HR and marketing but I am positive that I would love to work for an ethical or charity organisation similar to Shared Interest.

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