Have a heart and be a volunteer
“A community without volunteers, is a community without a heart.”
Those were the words of NSW Governor, The Honourable Margaret Beazley when she visited Yamba earlier this year.
Ms Beazley expressed her serious concern about the decline in volunteers in communities across NSW and organisations across the Clarence Valley are feeling the pressure from the lack of people stepping up to help their communities.
Volunteering Australia’s definition of volunteering is “time willingly given for the common good and without financial gain.”
From the NSW Rural Fire Service to the State Emergency Service, to Marine Rescue NSW, Rotary, Lions Clubs, and sporting and community groups are all desperate to secure the services of more volunteer members.
With a population of more than 55,000, the Clarence Valley has hundreds, if not thousands of potential volunteers who just have to take that first step, which could open up a new lease on life for people helping their communities in their spare time.
Instead of being a ‘keyboard warrior’ and sitting behind your computer offering solutions to the world’s problems, why not rethink your priorities and make a difference in your community by volunteering?
Anyone from a teenager to people in their 80’s and 90’s CAN, AND DO, Volunteer!
It doesn’t take a lot of time to volunteer, just by contributing several hours out of the 730 hours in the average calendar month can make a big difference to organisations across the Clarence Valley.
Christmas is about the “spirit of giving” so why not make the decision to give back to your community this Christmas and start volunteering in 2025.
A recent study published by Volunteering Australia showed the rate of volunteering has declined, with the Covid pandemic having had a major impact.
The 2021 Census reported a 19 per-cent decline in the number of Australians volunteering since 2016.
The ANU Centre for Social Research and Methods (CSRM) estimated a drop from 36 percent in 2019 to 26.7 per-cent in April 2022 in the proportion of adults who had volunteered formally over the 12 months prior.
While volunteer numbers have begun to increase post Covid, they are still well below previous figures.
Yamba SES Unit Commander, George Szekely said they need more members to ensure they can provide an adequate service to the town.
He said currently they have 30 registered members, but only 15 active members who are on-call around the clock.
“We take care of all of the road crash rescues, the home and industrial rescues, as well as flood rescues,” he said.
“Only having 15 people it means that our members just don’t get a break, they just have to be available most of the time because emergencies can happen 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, without any notice.
Mr Szekely said Yamba SES will resume their weekly Wednesday 6.30pm meetings from January 15 at their base at 34 Fairtrader Drive, Yamba, and will be holding a “Come and Try” day in February where prospective members can get a taste of what is involved.
Rotary Club of Yamba Co-President, Rick Angelo said numbers in the club had declined over the years to where the membership is now be in the single figures.
“We’ve gone, in my time, from 35 members at the peak down to 9 at the moment, so that’s not good,” he said.
“Having such a small group makes it hard on the 9 active members we have, it means we haven’t got as many people to help raise money, that we put back into the community, which impacts on everybody in the community.
“Eventually it’s going to be really hard to get events going, because we are all getting older and there are no new members coming along.”
Mr Angleo said Yamba Rotary meet at the Yamba Bowling Club on the second and fourth Tuesday of the month at 5.30pm for a 6pm start and anyone is welcome to come along.
Lions Club of Yamba President Peter Hudson said the number of members in the club had reduced by more than half since he joined.
To encourage new members to join, Mr Hudson said the club will cover the first year’s membership cost for anyone who wants to get involved.
“When I joined the Lions Club of Yamba about 6-yearsago we had more than 25 members and now we’ve got 11 active members at the moment,” he said.
“We’ve had to restrict our activities a bit due to the number of members we have.
“Our focus has been to help a lot of local businesses and other volunteer organisations like SES, NSW Marine Rescue, the public schools, and we’ve been pretty successful in doing that, but we need more members to continue the work we do in the community.”
Anyone interested in joining the Lions Club of Yamba can contact Mr Hudson on 0417 546 097, or Secretary Ling Gazzard on 0431 127 082.
This article appeared in the Clarence Valley Independent, 18 December 2024.