Off the back of last week’s ‘business as usual’ blog, the developments continue at Gig Buddies Sydney HQ.
As of this morning (10/8) we have received 182 volunteer and 57 gig buddy applications, spanning from Palm Beach in Sydney’s north, to Penrith in the west and Wollongong in the south.
We have also received volunteer applications from Brisbane, Adelaide, Canberra and Melbourne. Closer to home and within New South Wales, Tumut, Parkes and Newcastle also appear on our interactive volunteer map.
While we’re presently not in a geographical position to help all our willing volunteers (we’ve long term plans to take Gig Buddies inter and intra state), for those based within the Harbour City we’re taking measures to redress the balance of volunteers to gig buddies.
One of the biggest challenges we face is dealing with an area the size of Sydney, and the anomalies we’re seeing with the submitted volunteer and gig buddy applications’. For example, within Hornsby and Sydney’s surrounding upper north shore, we have received over ten gig buddy applications', but currently we have no volunteers from the area. In the Inner West and western suburbs we have a glut of volunteers ready and waiting to help, but very few gig buddies to speak of.
We are taking measure to address the situation. Today, Gig Buddies Sydney CEO, Carol, and I met with representatives from charity Life Without Barriers (picture below), an organisation with links to the south west and western parts of Sydney. Establishing links with disability organisations is one way to increase our brand awareness and recruit potential gig buddies.
To further redress the ratio of 3 volunteers to 1 gig buddy, sales pitches’ with other disability organisations within Chatswood and Sutherland are already penciled in the Gig Buddies Sydney diary. We’re conscientious that we need to get our volunteers out and about and we are taking active steps to get more gig buddies on board.
We are also conscientious of a need to advertise for volunteers within Sydney’s upper north shore, and we’re hoping to be in a position to say more about this within the coming weeks.
Matthew Collins
Gig Buddies Sydney Social Media Coordinator
matt@assistcom.org
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