Timaru’s Citizens Advice Bureau needs some extra hands to help others.
The organisation — based in Community House in Strathallan St — is on the hunt for new volunteers.
Manager Anne-Marie Chapman said the bureau had a few slots to fill with some of their volunteers retiring over the last year.
Mrs Chapman said the team fielded 1200 inquiries a year, while their legal clinic had fielded 300.
She said volunteers ‘‘could be asked about anything under the sun’’, from tenancy rights to locating a support group or connecting with other organisations or finding out whether a person was entitled to a benefit.
‘‘We work alongside our clients with the aim of empowering them.’’
The volunteers were supported by a huge range of resources including a referral database listing more than 35,000 organisations, she said.
‘‘We’ve all learned lots of new skills.’’
She felt the ‘‘incredibly rewarding’’ role was a great way to meet and connect with people in the community.
Far from being thrown into the deep end and left to it, volunteers were paired up with a more experienced volunteer whose strengths would complement their own.
Mrs Chapman said the organisation used diversity as an advantage.
She said some of their older volunteers ‘‘have skills that can’t be taught’’.
For example, they knew when to hold a silence.
Some volunteers had come with anxiety issues, but had moved on to a full-time job thanks to their volunteer work at Citizens Advice Bureau being on their CV.
She said for some volunteers it was ‘‘great just to be actively involved in our community, using our knowledge and experience to help people, and having a bit of a laugh together sometimes as well’’.
