Volunteering opportunities at the Library - please help!

A COFFEE morning at Molesey Library in early August was a great success.

The Friends purchased equipment, including an urn and hot water dispenser, and one of our members, Feliks (pictured) sold delicious cakes that were baked by library staff.

Manager Joanne Ryan (right) and her team would love to run events like this more often, but to do so they need the community's help. Perhaps you could help by baking or selling cakes, or even washing the cups and saucers on coffee mornings?

Volunteers are also needed to run Rhymetime and Storytime sessions for children, and computer courses to help older members to master the internet and email.

Here's the full list of volunteer opportunities and times, and please contact library staff or the Friends if you can help. Thank you.

Friends of Molesey Library – VOLUNTEERS NEEDED


1. Volunteers needed to set up and run coffee mornings

Coffee Morning: Every Friday
Time: 10.00 – 12.00

Volunteers needed to do the following:

• Person/s in overall charge to organise/ set up morning, wash and ensure everything is cleared away. (Need about 4 regular volunteers – 1 serving Cake, 1 making tea, 1 coffee, wash up and all to help generally)

• Person to bake cakes weekly – funds raised would provide 1 person with £20 per month to provide 2 cakes per week. Cake may be frozen to prevent waste and then all cakes are kept by the same person. Other people coming to the coffee morning may donate a cake).

• Volunteer who has a food hygiene H & S certificate or someone willing to be trained.

Coffee morning is a drop in time so not everyone would stay for two hours. At Chertsey, they invite representatives from other community groups to come e.g community police, fire safety, neighbourhood watch, local councillor etc to talk informally to people.

The morning would run by volunteers so that the Library Team can get on with their work.

2. Volunteers needed at Rhymetime, Story time minimum of 2 per session

Rhymetime: Weekly – Thursday -11.00 – 11.30
Storytime: Weekly  Friday 3.30 – 4.00    Saturday 3.30 – 4.00 

Rhymetime is a weekly event run by the Library team largely for babies & pre-school children so volunteers need to enjoy meeting parents and their children. Generally, the children are very young so parents tend to sit with or very close to their children. Volunteers are needed to welcome parents and show them where to put buggies safely so that they are not causing a health and safety issue in the library area. At the end of the session, help return buggies to parents. Volunteers would also join in with session to encourage and model for the children, help give out instruments etc.

With help from the library team, volunteers would have a sections of age appropriate books to encourage parents to borrow from the library and share with their child. Talk about popular bookswith parents and then be able to make recommendations if asked.  Always take the opportunity to encourage library membership and usage.

There are other children’s activities where help is needed such as art and craft days but these are not weekly events and potential volunteers would need to talk to the library team about dates and the type to help required.

3. Summer Reading Challenge – July - September

Volunteers needed during the Summer to help with the Summer Reading Challenge for children. Can you offer some time each week?

Volunteers need to be interested in children and encourage their reading so that they will complete the challenge during the summer holiday. You would talk to the children about their reading, complete their record cards, give out stickers and encourage them to return having read the next book for the challenge.

More details from Jo and the Team

4. Computer Buddies – 1-2 volunteers per week

Wednesday: 10.00 – 12.00 ( each course runs for 4 weeks)

Volunteers are needed to help people with basic computer skills. You will need patience as some people have no knowledge of computers which is why they want to learn!

More details from Jo and Library Team

5. Code Club

Time to be arranged

Volunteers needed to help with this club designed for young people to learn how to programme computers. This is a very new initiative and can only be started if there are sufficient volunteers to support the library.