A few days ago, the NHS and the Prime Minister put out a call for 250,000 volunteers to "help up to 1.5 million people who have been asked to shield themselves from coronavirus because of underlying health conditions" There's been an enormous response, they've got twice as many volunteers as they asked for and at a guess, 3-4 times as many as they hoped for.
The job of organising everything has been given to Royal Voluntary Service which older readers will remember as the WRVS. This is probably a good choice as with their background in providing "Meals On Wheels" there's a lot about the current mission that they should thoroughly understand.
It's noteworthy that one of the roles they want volunteers for is to make phone calls to people isolated by COVID-19, a role that can be open to just about everyone - including those whose health or disability precludes rushing around delivering food.
Perhaps the most significant challenge will be coping with the huge level of volunteer response. The demand for the various services may be quite low to start with and while that might sound like a good thing, keeping volunteers "sensibly busy" is a keystone of good volunteer management. If volunteers are given too little opportunity to actually contribute, they can become disillusioned with the mission, the RVS and volunteering in general. The answer is for RVS to be supremely well organised to use these volunteers well - I wish then luck!
PS: The volunteering sign up page is here
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