Voluntary Action South West Surrey

Care for Guildford - we are a local charity enabling people live independently with dignity. Through our of team of volunteers we

• provide a reliable, caring service taking people to and from essential medical appointments who would otherwise struggle. Our clients often have no-one else to call on, cannot manage public transport or are unable to afford taxis. Many clients have complex health conditions and struggle to attend the appointments they desperately need without our help.

• offer a shopping service that also provides friendly social contact to those living alone, allowing our clients to stay independent and remain in their home.

We are very flexible, no firm commitment is required, allowing us to work around your availability, however limited that maybe be.

If you can offer a friendly face, often at a difficult time in a client’s life - why not consider joining our amazing volunteer team. We promise you will make a real difference to our clients lives.

If any of the roles below are of interest, we would love to hear from you.

Web site: Care for Guildford   

Email: volunteer@careforguildford.org.uk

Located in the heart of the village of Pirbright, Cunningham House offers a home to nine older independent individuals. 

Part of the Abbeyfield Society, we exist to help those who have come to the stage in their lives when living alone becomes a daunting and isolating experience. 

Cunningham House enables residents to maintain their independence in the comfort and privacy of their own ensuite room, with the opportunity to enjoy the company of others over delicious home cooked meals and social activities. 

We have three paid members of staff, and a friendly and involved volunteers serving as committee members, gardeners and visitors. 

The Brigitte Trust is a Queen's Award registered charity offering a free service of emotional support and practical help.  The service is normally offered face-to-face in the home supporting people and their carers when a life-threatening illness such as Cancer or Motor Neurone Disease has been diagnosed. Currently, and since first lockdown, our volunteers are offering telephone support, though in time we hope to return to the home visiting for which we are widely known. The Brigitte Trust is a trusted partner of Surrey County Council and over 400 referrals have been received from Community Responders throughout Surrey.  More volunteers are needed now to support people who have received a late diagnosis or delayed treatment. 

The detection work of Cancer Testing South is driven by a passion to find early indications of prostate cancer and also lead to the uncovering of other frequently overlooked cancer through both testing with a simple blood test and by promoting awareness. We aim to learn educate and use knowledge, to reduce death from prostate and other cancers that regularly respond to early intervention.

Community Angels are trained befrienders who offer six months of weekly face-to-face support to adults of all ages in Guildford borough struggling with loneliness and/or social isolation. 

If you have a couple of free hours a week and enjoy listening and getting to know people, we'd love to hear from you. We provide training to get started (2 x 3 hours sessions), match you carefully with someone to befriend and provide ongoing support while you are volunteering with us.

Hear what our volunteers say on https://youtu.be/5MAb_UVTcc0

Community Angels is one of three projects run by Guildford Town Centre Chaplaincy.

                                      Cranleigh Village Care

We are a group of volunteers who have been serving the Cranleigh community for over 20 years. We have provided transport for Cranleigh residents who need our support to attend their medical appointments at local surgeries, clinics and hospitals.

Because of Covid restrictions we have been unable to operate since March 2020.

We would love to be able to relaunch our service for existing and new clients as soon as we can because we know that there are local people who are struggling to get to vital appointments because of a lack of transport.

We do have a core of drivers and duty officers (who deal with telephone requests and arrange the transport) who are keen to get started again but we desperately need to find new volunteers to help coordinate the service and we always need more drivers.

Crossroads Care Surrey is an established charity of over 30 years, offering a range of support services to carers and the people for whom they care.  We are committed to supporting people at an earlier stage in their care journey and recognise there can be a considerable length of time between a person needing some care and support periodically and them needing full time, round-the-clock care.

Community Support Volunteers will support Crossroads Care Surrey by providing the delivery of essential shopping for cared for people and carers that are struggling with the weekly shop or collecting prescriptions. With access to your own vehicle, you will receive requests made by the Community Support Co-ordinator to complete a shopping trip to help the people Crossroads Care Surrey support in your community.  

Befriending Volunteers will support befriending service to the people we support, enabling them to benefit from knowing there is someone there to listen, understand, be their friend and check in on their wellbeing. Calls could last anything from 10 minutes to half an hour and you will need to ensure that you can listen with understanding and patience and then respond appropriately.

Our Companion Volunteers provide visits upwards of 1 and a half hours.  Companionship visits are generally provided by our team of volunteers and are geared up towards people in the early stages of their caring journey, and their loved ones who do not – at this stage – require round-the-clock or specialist support.

We're also looking for new Trustee's to join us now, so if you're interested in supporting us in leading the development of respite services for carers in Surrey, please enquire through our website www.crossroadscaresurrey.org.uk

We are also always looking for people that are interested in other volunteering roles, including by offering support in care or club settings, in the community or in the head office.

If you are interested in becoming part of our Surrey wide team and being involved in providing support to your community, please email us at enquiries@crossroadscaresurrey.org.uk to request a volunteer pack.

We'd love to hear from you... if you have a good understanding of what it's like to be a carer and are looking to give something back through volunteering.

Established in 1994, Dance Woking is an innovative dance organisation that provides high quality opportunities to watch, perform and take part in dance, providing new experiences that inspire artists, audiences, participants and communities.

WHO ARE WE FOR?

Our work is primarily for Woking and the surrounding Surrey towns and villages.

We serve and support networks across the age spectrum from schoolchildren, to students and recent graduates, to young people outside training and education, and the perennials.

Dance lovers across the county and into London rave about our regular live public performances.

And our pop-up and festival appearances in shopping centres and local parks bring our public spaces to life.

WHY DANCE WOKING?

Our work brings unexpected and lasting benefits through dance to real communities at grass roots level where it has lasting impact.

We are a thriving and nimble business firmly rooted in Woking and Surrey, soon entering our fourth decade of inspiring dance.

We’re alert to local collaborations and equipped to offer more, especially with our funding partners at the Borough Council.

We work with other regional agents in housing and health, in sport and in schools; and we have successful alliances with independent dance artists and choreographers, and with specialist dance schools and mainstream education providers.

To make grants to charities within the Guildford area to further the training and development of disadvantaged young people and adults with special needs, and to assist the charitable work of Guildford United Reformed Church.

Dyscover is a charity providing long-term support and opportunities to people with aphasia and their families. Daily sessions are led by professional speech and language therapists and are designed to help people to adjust to living with aphasia. We help our members to develop strategies for communicating, maximise abilities and provide help and support for partners, carers and other family members.

To offer lifts to elderly residents of Farncombe and Binscombe, or others without their own transport or convenient access to public services. Lifts will typically be to all types of  medical appointments..

Clients make modest voluntary contributions towards the cost of the driver's car expenses..

Drivers offer a personal service using their own vehicles. Clients make requests via a mobile number, which is manned on weekdays from 10 to 12 noon, with a message facility

Do you love gardening? Do you like helping those in your community? Then we have the perfect project for you!

We are looking for volunteers to help those in their local community, who are not able to upkeep their gardens. We are aiming to start the project in Merrow during the Springtime. This is a pilot project and in the future, we would love for it to be rolled out across all the wards of Guildford.

Our Mission is to share God’s love in the community
We aim to be an open, welcoming Christian church
Serving one another and our neighbours
Working for justice and peace in God’s world.
Our faith may be 2000 years old but our thinking is 21st Century.
Whoever you are and wherever you are on life’s journey, you are welcome here.

We are a non-government funded community centre with a wide range of daily activities to suit all needs. With a warm welcome and lots of fun activities, we strive to offer a place for people of all ages to come and enjoy.

The Haslewey is a completely independent organisation and a registered charity that runs as a business. To enable us to continue to benefit the local community, we are heavily dependent on income we generate from our services and events.

The Macular Society is the national charity for anyone affected by central vision loss. We have more than 21,000 members and, as the biggest membership group in the sight loss sector, we are the voice of people with macular conditions. We provide information and support to improve the lives of people with macular disease and to ensure no one has to face it alone. We have around 400 Macular Society support groups around the UK and beyond, run by volunteers. We have a helpline as well as befriending and counselling services and we offer one-to-one training in skills to make the best use of remaining vision. We campaign for better care and we fund research so that one day we can overcome macular disease.

Our Vision

A world free from MND

Our Mission

We improve care and support for people with MND, their families and carers.

We fund and promote research that leads to new understanding and treatments, and brings us closer to a cure for MND.

We campaign and raise awareness so the needs of people with MND and everyone who cares for them are recognised and addressed by wider society.

Oakleaf Enterprises is an independent registered charity whose purpose is to support people with mental health issues to lead independent, productive and fulfilling lives.

The charity’s aim is to transform the lives and futures of adults managing their mental ill-health and help them secure the skills, confidence and training needed to return to the workplace. This pathway is delivered via three main focuses: Work-Related Training, Wellbeing Activities, and Counselling Services.

We are working to deliver exceptional care in a welcoming and safe environment for patients at Royal Surrey Hospital.

From providing state of the art equipment and redeveloping wards, to investing in staff development and funding innovative research, our patients are at the heart of everything we do.

Working collaboratively with medical and support staff, we fund projects that make the biggest impact on the 260,000 people we treat each year – from babies, to children and young adults, to older people.

Whitmore Vale Housing Association offers services to people with learning disabilities and we work alongside them to achieve the most out of their life. Through supported living and residential care we can meet a wide range of needs, supporting people with a mild learning disability, to those who have profound and complex disabilities.