Volunteer recruitment fair going ahead at the Corn Exchange today

The annual event, organised by the Volunteer Centre West Berkshire, will see 40 charities turn out to recruit new members, among them the National Autistic Society, the Community Furniture Project and Get Berkshire Active.
Each charity will have set up an information and recruitment stand in the Corn Exchange auditorium, from 10am to 3pm, to entice members of the public to sign up.
This year’s theme is wartime Britain, and Volunteer Centre director, Garry Poulson, is urging both volunteers from the organisations and those popping in to visit to get involved.
“It’s just a way of saying that volunteering work is about enjoying yourself,” he said. “It breaks barriers down, we don’t want people to feel that they are coming into a church tombola.”
Despite the threat of heavy snow, Mr Poulson is adamant the event will go ahead.
“I can only hope that people will think about the huge effort that we have put into this, not to mention the money, and that they will therefore come down and take a look at the organisations,” he said.
“People quite often have a misconception of what [volunteering] might entail and coming into a volunteer recruitment fair they discover there are dozens of different sorts of organisations that their skills can be useful to.
“We will be there with bated breath to talk to members of the public about volunteering.”