Why volunteering is ace – for everyone

You might not come out the same as you went in, but volunteering will definitely give you a smile, and probably a whole lot of other goodies besides, says Nick Martlew.

Volunteering can take you anywhere, including chicken sheds. Glastonbury in the sunshine - well it's hardly work, is it?! Volunteer and you, too, could get a cool hat.

Have a think about these characters: a Belgian nationalist filling in trenches in Slovakia; a Polish IT whizz shovelling euphemisms in Israeli chicken sheds; and the great granddaughter of Field Marshal Haig, he of First World War infamy.

What do these disparate individuals have in common? Did they all, perchance, sit on the knee of Harry Secombe at one point in their lives? Or do they share a genetic intolerance of pelicans? Not quite.

In fact, I volunteered with each of them. As if the point needs emphasising: volunteers are a diverse bunch. Their backgrounds, the ways they volunteer and why, and what they go on to do – volunteers come in enough varieties to make Mr Heinz blush.

But one thing binds them: they come at what they’re doing with energy and they leave it feeling all the more inspired (with the possible exception of poor old Avram in the chicken sheds. I met him by freaky coincidence in Warsaw months later – he’d just about recovered).

Volunteering – good for the soul

The reward for volunteering can come in many forms, but the most powerful has got to be the glowing sense of accomplishment at having contributed something without financial reward. Time is the most precious gift - to give it voluntarily and constructively can give you a real buzz.

Then there’s the wondrous variety of people you meet. Coming from all their different stages and places, other volunteers can give you a fresh perspective on life, the universe, and career ladders.

The intensity of the shared experience can generate friendships that may last your lifetime or disappear in a puff of exhaust fumes: either way, by throwing yourself into the experience you can get more straightforward, no-messing, unadulterated fun out of it than a thousand episodes of Fun House compressed into pill form.

Volunteering – good for the CV

And where volunteering gets you in the game of snakes and ladders that is job-hunting can be the biggest advantage. I know people who got onto their preferred degree course because they had some volunteering experience; people whose volunteering turned into a paid job; and people who just needed to sort their heads out. Poor Avram.

So anyone can volunteer and get much more out of it than so many of those mice on the management consultancy wheels. And anyone can come out of that volunteering feeling fitter, happier, and above all inspired to believe that your actions can make a difference – to yourself and to others. Chickens included.