Two young adults making a difference in Marlborough!
For Student Volunteer Week we're shining the spotlight on a few local young volunteers. Today we'd like you to meet Justin and Taylah who volunteer with Marlborough Youth Trust...
How old are you?
Taylah: 18
Justin: 20
What do you do when you volunteer?
We are both part of the Marlborough Youth Trust Advisory Group (MYTAG). At MYTAG meetings, we do development courses and plan youth-focussed events like Spring Fest and Beach Fest. Planning events involves arranging a venue, entertainers, food vendors, transport, parking, advertising, and making sure it all fits within a budget. We also volunteer at the events, helping with set-up (e.g. staging) and pack-down, manning the front gate, and other miscellaneous tasks that make sure the event runs smoothly. Justin often runs the sausage sizzle.
What is your favourite part?
Taylah: Getting to see what happens behind the scenes and seeing everyone working together.
Justin: Seeing the event finally fall into place after months of planning and watching the youth attending the event having heaps of fun.
Why did you start volunteering?
Taylah: I have a passion for helping people and I was already involved with Marlborough Youth Trust so it felt natural to take the next step.
Justin: I joined the Youth in Emergency Services program in 2018 and, near the end of the course, Bex (Youth Worker at MYT) asked if wanted to continue my involvement with MYTAG and other MYT things. I’d really enjoyed the YES program so it was an easy yes!
How do you feel your volunteer work impacts the Marlborough community?
Taylah: Running youth-focussed events provides an opportunity for Marlborough’s young people to find and develop their passions.
Justin: Our youth-friendly events give young people an opportunity to hang out with people they might not meet otherwise, and it’s all in a safe environment.
Has volunteering given you an opportunity to learn anything or gain new skills?
Both: We have both been able to complete the Psychological First Aid course (taught us how to provide emotional and practical support to someone who has experienced a traumatic event) and the Strength Finders course (helped us discover our top five strengths so that we can work better in a team and pursue some personal development).
What would you say to someone who is thinking about starting volunteering?
Justin: “The skills you can learn while volunteering are definitely worth it; they look great on a CV. You also don’t know where these volunteer roles will lead to; you might find an industry you thought you’d never work in”
Taylah: “Volunteering can make you feel better in yourself, but it can also make other people feel better when they know you are putting all this time in for them.”
⚠️ DOGS DIE IN HOT CARS. If you love them, don't leave them. ⚠️
It's a message we share time and time again, and this year, we're calling on you to help us spread that message further.
Did you know that calls to SPCA about dogs left inside hot cars made up a whopping 11% of all welfare calls last summer? This is a completely preventable issue, and one which is causing hundreds of dogs (often loved pets) to suffer.
Here are some quick facts to share with the dog owners in your life:
👉 The temperature inside a car can heat to over 50°C in less than 15 minutes.
👉 Parking in the shade and cracking windows does little to help on a warm day. Dogs rely on panting to keep cool, which they can't do in a hot car.
👉 This puts dogs at a high risk of heatstroke - a serious condition for dogs, with a mortality rate between 39%-50%.
👉 It is an offence under the Animal Welfare Act to leave a dog in a hot vehicle if they are showing signs of heat stress. You can be fined, and prosecuted.
SPCA has created downloadable resources to help you spread the message even further. Posters, a flyer, and a social media tile can be downloaded from our website here: www.spca.nz...
We encourage you to use these - and ask your local businesses to display the posters if they can. Flyers can be kept in your car and handed out as needed.
This is a community problem, and one we cannot solve alone. Help us to prevent more tragedies this summer by sharing this post.
On behalf of the animals - thank you ❤️
Worst Xmas ever?
There's a a lot of planning that goes into Christmas day and sometimes things just don't go to plan. But it can be a good thing - a family mishap or hilarious memory that you can laugh about in Christmases to come.
Whether you burnt the dinner or were stranded at an airport...
Share your Christmas mishaps below!
Poll: Would you rather: Christmas in summer forever or winter forever?
Just a bit of a fun poll to get you thinking.
If you had to live out your Christmas days, would you prefer it was a summer Christmas or a winter Christmas?
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61.7% Summer
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36.7% Winter
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1.6% Other - I'll share below
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