Volunteering as a Community Volunteer, Course Rep or Committee Member is a really fantastic thing to do during your time as a student. Not only are you developing your skills and making the most of your University experience, you are also making a huge difference to others.

We in the Volunteer Team talk about logging hours and skills quite a lot so I thought I would outline once and for all why it is so important and valuable!

Volunteer Awards

By logging your volunteering hours and skills you can work towards a Bronze, Silver or Gold Volunteer Award which will help you stand out from the crowd. By winning one of these awards, you will receive a certificate that will be presented to you at the end of the academic year at the SU Awards!

Want to go a step further? Our Volunteer Awards form part of the point’s criteria for the Vice Chancellor’s Student Leader Award, which could bag you a cool £1000 and will be presented at your graduation ceremony – what a way to end your time at ARU!

You could also be nominated as a Community Volunteer of the Month, Rep of the Month or Committee Member of the Month. By winning one of our Volunteer of the Month Awards, you will automatically be nominated for your respective SU Award; Volunteer of the Year, Rep of the Year or Society Person of the Year.

It helps with interviews and your CV

Recording your hours and skills on your Volunteer Profile automatically feeds into a Skills Transcript. This is SUCH a useful document which can be downloaded or printed and can aid you in job applications and job interviews too!

If you regularly record your hours and skills you won’t forget what you have done and achieved over the year which is so easy to do with everything else you have to remember as a student! Then, when you come to apply for jobs, you have all the information you need about your volunteering recorded and at your fingertips.

You can be proud of yourself!

If you record the activity you complete as a volunteer, you realise how many hours you have completed and how many skills you have developed. Seeing all the great things you have achieved throughout your time at ARU will make you really proud of yourself!

Start recording your hours and skills today

Recording your hours and skills is really quick and easy. If you are not sure which hours you can log, you can check out our hours guides and if you are finding it difficult to identify your skills, sign up to one of our Skills Reflection Workshops or read our article 'How to log your skills effectively'.

Record your volunteering hours and skills today!