GOOD TIMES
When is a good time to volunteer?
While just about anytime is a good time, here are some specific days and times. Note special times in red.

• Monday 9-11am to help with the fruit+veg delivery and 2-6pm to refill bins and jars after the weekend.
• Tuesday 10am-noon to help us set up the shop
• Wednesday 9-11am to help with the fruit+veg delivery
• Thursday 10am-noon to help us set up the shop, 4-6pm to refill bins and jars, 7.30-9.30pm to help with the close up.
• Friday 9-11am to help with the fruit+veg delivery and 2-5pm to help refill bins and jars.
• Saturdays 3-5pm to help with refilling
• Sundays 1-5pm to help with refilling.

While Alfalfa House has a number of paid staff to ensure stock is bought, the till is staffed, the place is cleaned and so on, it relies on considerable support from its network of committed member volunteers.

IMPORTANT. If you're new to volunteering at Alfalfa House, before you do your first volunteer shift, we'll take you through some basic OH+S training and get you familiar with the shop and storeroom layout so you'll know where things are. It takes about a half hour. Tours are on Mondays at noon. To book in for a tour, please email the Co-op Coordinator by clicking here.

ONGOING TASKS

1. Helping with Tuesday setup. Help set up the co-op for the day's trade, ie, help put the fruit+veg and the bread out and get the shop ready. Time: 10am-noon.

2. Keeping it clean. There are several cleaning projects we would like some help with. For more details, please contact our Groceries Stock Coordinator by clicking here.

3. Give us some advice. Anyone with experience and/or expertise in financial management, strategy, and planning would be welcomed with open arms.

If any of these interest you, please contact the Co-op Coordinator by clicking here.

WHAT YOU GET
IN RETURN
Volunteering two hours of your time earns members a single unlimited 25% discount off the marked price of all goods in the shop.

Then there's the satisfaction of volunteering, of freely giving of your time and knowing you are making a difference and that you are appreciated.

IS THERE SOME SCIENCE TO IT ALL?
If it feels good to be 'good', it might be only natural. Neuroscientists at the US National Institutes of Health, scanned the brains of volunteers as they were asked to think about a scenario involving either donating a sum of money to charity or keeping it for themselves. The results showed that when the volunteers placed the interests of others before their own, the generosity activated a primitive part of the brain that usually lights up in response to food or sex. Altruism, the experiment suggests, is not a superior moral faculty that suppresses basic selfish urges but rather is basic to the brain, hard-wired and pleasurable.
Washington Post
May 28, 2007