RSVP West RSVP West volunteers. RSVP West's logo, featuring our slogan 'Older People for People'

RSVP is the only national body that provides volunteering opportunities for the over-50s

MANY WAYS OF CARING

The range of projects with which RSVP West becomes involved is as broad as people's needs and the interests and skills of the local organisers ...

CLIMATE CHANGE AND THE OVER 50S Swindon Town Hall.    The Community Grants programme of Swindon Borough Council has funded four RSVP volunteers, led by Dave Brown, to raise awareness of climate change. The Climate Change and the over 50s project will target and engage as many people and groups in this age sector as possible across the Borough. Through personal and group discussion, advice, guidance and information will be given on the range of options available to enable them to take action to reduce their carbon footprint. The project is based upon, and develops, the resources elsewhere on this site.

Violet Luton is serving a customer with coffee at the tea bar in the magistrates court in Yate. THE LAW AND THE COFFEE  A group of volunteers, under the direction of the local RSVP organiser Violet Luton, seen serving a customer, operate a tea bar every weekday morning that provides refreshments and light snacks for lawyers, police, security staff and witnesses attending the magistrates court in Yate, South Gloucestershire.

THORNBURY COMMUNITY GARDEN The new community garden in Thornbury is complete.   The Garden is a community venture supported by a team of volunteers. The original was forced to close in January 2007 but has been recreated in a derelict plot alongside the new community building. In a three-year project, the team cleared the site, laid foundations, added top soil, built pathways and a solar-powered water feature, and planted it out. It opened in September 2008. The Garden is open to everyone, including wheelchair users and the disabled. See the project’s own home page.

RSVP volunteer Victor helps two MS patients to their homes in Weston-super-Mare. MEDICAL HELP  RSVP volunteers in Nailsea are kept busy making regular weekly collections of prescriptions for housebound local residents. The local doctors also take advantage of this service during their house calls by leaving prescriptions with patients; the surgery contacts the local volunteer team who collect the prescriptions and deliver the medication. Elsewhere in Nailsea, RSVP West volunteer drivers (such as Victor, right) are helping the local multiple-sclerosis therapy centre by transporting MS sufferers for treatment.

Patrick Williams. HELPING COUPLES  Local organiser Patrick Williams acts as liaison for the family contact centre in Swindon, formerly a part of the WRVS but now operated under the aegis of RSVP West. Couples with marital problems can leave their children under the safe supervision of volunteers there while they sort out their differences.

Shirley Stark. EASING THE LOAD  Shirley Stark organises a group of volunteers at one of the Bristol Abbeyfield homes to cook the main meal of the day for the elderly residents when the housekeeper has her weekly day off. She also organises trips out for the residents.

© 2003–08 RSVP West. Page last updated on 21 May 2009.

VOLUNTEERS NEEDED!

Gentle Activity Project: next training courses scheduled for April and May.
Organisers: in North Somerset and around Bath.
Drivers: in Westbury-on-Trym.
Schools helpers: in Bristol, Bath & South Gloucestershire.

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OUR AREA

RSVP West covers Bristol, North Somerset, South Gloucestershire, Bath & North East Somerset, and Swindon & north-west Wiltshire.

ABOUT RSVP WEST

The Friends of RSVP West Region is a local registered charity (No 1108785), which has no salaried staff: everyone involved is a volunteer, including the trustees and management committee.

Nationally, RSVP is a project of Community Service Volunteers (CSV), a company limited by guarantee and registered in England (No 1435877), and a registered charity (No 291222).