Tenants' Union of Tasmania

Volunteers Are Our Most Valuable People

by Meredith Upchurch

I have been working as a Solicitor with the Tenants’ Union of Tasmania for four years and I can honestly say that the most valuable resource I had available to me were our volunteers. The Tenants’ Union of Tasmania offers our telephone advice service five days a week from 9.30am until 4.00pm each weekday. This service is staffed by our generous volunteers, who give up a minimum of 3 hours of their time each week to provide excellent advice to tenants.

 

Our volunteers come from a variety of areas with the majority of them coming to us from the University of Tasmania Law School. Many are fourth or fifth year law students who wish to make a contribution to the community whilst also being provided with the opportunity to utilise skills learnt through their education and to gain further practical skills including client interview skills, and effective methods of listening and communicating. We also have volunteers who come from other walks of life including our longest standing volunteer Bob. Bob is 83 and has been with the Tenants’ Union of Tasmania for over six years. Bob volunteers his time with us two mornings each week as well as volunteering at a number of other organisations.

 

Over the past few years we have increased our efforts in recruiting and training volunteers to ensure that not only do they enjoy coming in to the Tenants’ Union each week but to also ensure that they gain the most value out of their time with us. We now make contact with the University each year to seek interest from students in the law school. From here we offer full training on the Residential Tenancy Act 1997 and on their role as a telephone advice worker. Volunteers then commit to a minimum of 26 weeks (6 months) volunteering with us and we are able to provide them with a reference if required. Luckily for us most choose to stay on longer than the required time and a number of volunteers we have now have been with us for at least two years if not more.

 

The reason I say our volunteers are my most valuable resource is simply because they are. Without our volunteers providing their time to us we would not be able to provide the level of service to our clients that we currently have. Tenants in Tasmania can ring our advice line with the confidence of knowing they have trained volunteers providing them with the information to ensure their rights are being adhered to.

 

The Tenants’ Union of Tasmania would like to extend our thanks to all our volunteers from the past and in particular our current volunteers Bob, Alex, Kirsty, Lucinda, Mark, Jill, Kendall, Kelly and Patrick.