We’ve been operating at our warehouse at 32-34 Lincoln Street, East Brunswick since June 2021 and we are now well set up with shelving, working systems in place & while we will never stop improving, we urgently need more regular help to ensure we can supply the growing number of clients who need our goods to set up their secure homes, often they have nothing without our help!
RIMERN so far:
We are a registered charity with Deductible Gift Recipient status and all donations are fully tax deductible!
We have a pretty well stocked warehouse, with furniture, appliances, linen and homewares, in house dishwasher, washer & dryer and electrical test & tag meter.
To date 19 welfare agencies have signed up as members, we’ve inducted around 80 of their Case Managers and we’ve supplied over 60 client orders (with an average second hand value of $1,200 each!)
Our facebook page https://www.facebook.com/groups/495145215239091 has over 900 followers (please ‘like’ it yourself & invite all your friends & family to do likewise as we are getting offers of donations & volunteers via this page!)
NOW WE NEED A REGULAR VOLUNTEER TEAM, can you help?
[NB, to be covid safe, all volunteers must be fully vaccinated, enter their details on the time sheet on arrival and departure. Our space allows for social distancing in each department & we recommend mask wearing if people are working closely in teams.]
Days:Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays
Morning Shift: 9.30 – 12.30, Afternoon Shift: 12.30 – 3.30
Warehouse Volunteers Required:
Warehouse :
Tasks include sorting donated furniture, moving stock (with trolleys) maintaining tidiness & aisles for easy access to goods.
Assembling client orders, steam cleaning sofas, cleaning & testing white goods, sorting scrap metal, other tasks as required.
We also need a roster of truck drivers & jockeys for donation collection on Wednesdays & Saturdays. People experienced in driving an automatic furniture van with hydraulic tail gate (car license), fit & fun! (Another vital PR job of Rotarians meeting community members who may know nothing about Rotary & what we do).
Linen Team
Tasks: sorting, sizing, folding, packing & labelling the mountains of doonas, blankets, mattress protectors and other bedding into size lots.
Laundering linen on site, folding, packing into sets, collating client orders, identifying ‘rejects’ for textile recycling.
Kitchen Team
Unpacking, washing, sorting, stacking then repacking into kits all the donations of kitchen goods, we prepack sets for 4 & 6 so that orders can be supplied fast.
Unwanted donations are repacked & left on the front door pallets for Op Shop collection.
Sorting, testing (operationally), cleaning small electrical appliance donations ready for test & tag team to test for safety & Goods Selection Hosts to pick for orders.
Goods Selection Hosts
The best job in Rotary! Liaising with our agency members’ Case Managers who order goods for their clients, arranging Goods Selection appointments for Manager & client in the warehouse, guiding their selection including décor choices, extra items not on the order form, explaining what Rotary is & does & how RIMERN operates, making the client understand that our aim is to help them set up a comfortable, stylish & welcoming home to be proud of, not just a collection of ‘stuff’. Requesting pictures of the finished rooms to share with our donors & volunteers (anonymously) on social media to encourage more donations & participation in our project.
Labelling & assembling the order ready for delivery, coordinating deliver with Canard Solutions & supplying completed orders to admin team for KPI collation.
The Hosts must be friendly, patient, empathetic and real ‘people people’, most clients have never heard of Rotary & this is our chance to share who we are & what we do with the community.
As the clients leave the warehouse the Hosts ask them to send pictures of their new home set up with the items we’ve supplied so we can share with our donors & volunteers, here are some examples!
Volunteers working from home
Donated Goods Coordinator(s)
A team of 4, covering one week (Saturday to Saturday) a month, to coordinate goods donations, to maintain Rotary & RIMERN’s reputation for friendly communication whether the goods are accepted or gently rejected.
Role entails:
Understanding what we do & don’t accept (& why)(there’s a list in the ‘About’ section of our facebook page for all to see, plus the team get an extra list to follow.
Speaking with the potential donors to find out what they want to donate (size, age, condition etc), where it’s located & when it must be collected by.
Request they send photos of larger items to ensure acceptability to donatedgoods@rimern.org.au
Compiling the collection list/spreadsheet for Saturday & Wednesday pick ups, alert Club reps for smaller collections (in their members’ cars) OR arrange for donor to deliver (NB someone must greet donor & they may not bring other goods without approval. Our warehouse staff reserves the right to reject goods that are unsuitable as it costs us $$ to dispose of junk) & we don’t publish our warehouse address on social media to avoid Op Shop style dumping.
Organising pick up with the collections driver(s) & jockeys, advising the warehouse managers when the goods will be delivered so that space is available & stock can be put away not dumped. The truck team have ultimate right of veto, if it’s not up to scratch they can say ‘no thanks’ on the spot.
If you can help with the roles above, please send your details, including name, email address, phone number, Rotary Club (if you are a Rotarian) and day/shift preference to Mike Albabari mfalbabari@hotmail.com or volunteers@rimern.org.au
Any questions re tasks, please contact susie.cole@rotaryprahran.org.au or phone 1300 924 123
