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Many volunteer roles apply selection criteria and seek volunteers who possess specific skills. The skills of course might be at any level depending on the role. For example, lots of sci com organisations, including us, will accept voluntary contributions of scientists as speakers at events. We don’t pay them, they may or may not claim travel or other expenses, they are doing it voluntarily, but we would expect them to have specific skills (scientific expertise in the topic, good at presenting) and to carry out specific duties (deliver a talk of X length and X time in a way appropriate for X audience type). A specific role doesn't equate to a casual worker. All volunteers have a role. Pam -----Original Message----- From: psci-com: on public engagement with science [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Alison Atkin Sent: 29 April 2013 14:51 To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: [PSCI-COM] Volunteering at the Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition Hi, I know this discussion has been going on for a fair while now, but I thought I'd take the opportunity to raise a point I don't think has been mentioned yet; and one that falls between the volunteering and HR issues that have been brought up. Personally, (one of) the major issues I see with this advertisement is that they aren't really looking for 'volunteers'. They have specific criteria they are looking for in their ultimately successful candidates and by applying selection criteria, they are seeking to fulfil a specific role (and therefore a casual worker). In a true volunteering role (as suggested by the earlier definition posted up), the successful candidates should include people with little to no previous experience or possibly even the necessary skills, but who are keen to share their time and in exchange are given an opportunity to gain that experience and learn new skills (which many see as 'making up' for being unpaid). I highly doubt this will be the case, but I would love to be proved wrong. Alison Atkin P.S. Personally, I would very much like to be in a position to do more 'volunteer' work (and gain more incredibly desireable experience and skills), but sadly I have to limit myself in order to achieve a balance between PhD studies/ paid work/ outreach/ personal life, as I believe most people must. ********************************************************************** Commands - send an email (any subject) to [log in to unmask] with one of the following messages (ignoring text in brackets) • set psci-com nomail (to stop receiving messages while on holiday) • set psci-com mail (to resume getting messages) • signoff psci-com (to leave the list) • Subscribe here https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A0=psci-com Contact list owner at [log in to unmask] Small print and JISCMail acceptable use policy https://sites.google.com/site/pscicomjiscmail/the-small-print ********************************************************************** ______________________________________________________________________ This email has been scanned by the MessageLabs Email Security System on behalf of the British Science Association (http://www.britishscienceassociation.org) ______________________________________________________________________ ********************************************************************** Commands - send an email (any subject) to [log in to unmask] with one of the following messages (ignoring text in brackets) • set psci-com nomail (to stop receiving messages while on holiday) • set psci-com mail (to resume getting messages) • signoff psci-com (to leave the list) • Subscribe here https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A0=psci-com Contact list owner at [log in to unmask] Small print and JISCMail acceptable use policy https://sites.google.com/site/pscicomjiscmail/the-small-print **********************************************************************