Dear Volunteers,

The last couple of weeks have all been about you, our library volunteers, and the opportunity for us to show our appreciation and thanks for your continued commitment and support in our libraries. A special Volunteers' Week newsletter with articles and content from the celebrations will be arriving in your inbox at the end of June.

This is your summer newsletter but the question I'm sure we all want the answer to is, where is summer? Let's not give up just yet and hope we have a warmer than expected July.

If you have yet to read the latest Customer Newsletter please take a look!

Name:

Wendy Greene

Volunteer role: 

Local Studies Volunteer

How long have you been a volunteer?

About 15 years.

I started volunteering at Worthing Library on the Walter Gardiner Collection. The role was advertised with over 100 applications received and 12 volunteers were chosen, each of us with one or more ‘talents’ that would prove useful.

What is the role of the Local Studies Volunteer?

I record details on spreadsheets for archiving; items such as as postcards, photos and ephemera from various collections that have been donated.

What do you enjoy most about the role?

I enjoy working on different collections and the group have all become friends. Every week there’s something new and  plenty to learn with some laughs along the way. We’ve seen postcards saying ‘Come to tea this afternoon’ which probably arrived just hours after posting, and pictures on postcards with messages like ‘This is the lifeboat launch I saw yesterday’ and ‘Yesterday’s storm which blew down the pier.’ You could never achieve that today.

Do you have any hobbies or other interests you’d like to share, or a recommended read or library app you use?

Since retiring, firstly from teaching, then journalism, I felt the need to write. I have five books in the library, two poetry books, a novel, Malcolm Carpenter Collected People and a children’s adventure Who’s Huckleberry Finn? which has been used in Thomas A Becket School for the past three years. My latest offering is What’s in a Name – The Streets of Worthing, which is selling like hotcakes.

Homemade scones and a visit from the Fire Service were the order of the day at Steyning and Burgess Hill Libraries on Tuesday as part of a full week of volunteer thankyou events.

Volunteers took part in a local history quiz created with images from past pictures at Steyning. Haywards Heath volunteers came along to a joint event at Burgess Hill, where a very engaging and interactive "Safe and Well" presentation was delivered by the West Sussex Fire and Rescue team.

The question of the day though was... do you like your scones Devon or Cornwall?

Do you know someone aged 14+ who can spare some time during the summer holidays?

Or would you like to do some extra volunteering in your local library?

Many of our libraries still need volunteers to help us run the 2024 Summer Reading Challenge, 'Marvellous Makers' for children.

The role is very flexible - you don't have to commit to a certain day every week or a set number of hours (although we recommend a minimum of ten hours between July -September to make the most of the opportunity).