Simply go to www.essexstudent.com/volunteering/vteamprojects/ and discover the projects you're interested in. Click on the project's picture and it will take you to their Gradintelligence page. When you get there, click on "Register". Now you've registered for the project and will receive all the details via email. 

There are 4 main types of projects: regular, one-off, online, and external partnerships.

• Regular projects happen every week through the term time, they have at least one session weekly and they have a committee structure made out of student volunteers who make sure that the projects are running smoothly. Before you go on sessions, you need to complete a short Safeguarding training. By engaging in these projects, you become our regular volunteer.
• One-off projects are one-day volunteering opportunities that do not happen regularly. We mostly have one one-off project weekly or in two weeks, but they are different every time. For example, on some one-off projects we do, painting, on others we do litter-picking, or collect food for Foodbank. You do not need to complete any training before coming to these events, and you don't become a regular volunteer.
• Online projects are volunteering projects that can be done remotely at your own leisure. When you register, you decide when and how long you want to volunteer.
• External partnerships are projects which are run by external organisations and charities (such as The Prince's Trust) but are brought to you via VTeam's platform. All the communication comes from those organisations, and VTeam is there to just overlook everything.

Of course! You can register to as many volunteering projects as you'd like. You can be a part of multiple regular projects or engage in online projects, one-offs, and external projects all simultaneously. 

Committee members are student volunteers which lead regular volunteering projects. They consist of 3 roles: Session Leaders, Communications Officer, and Project Leader.

• Session Leaders lead volunteers to and from the sessions and make sure that everything is running smoothly. They are recording the attendance and making sure there are no problems on the session.
• Communications Officer emails all the new registered volunteers to welcome them to the project, makes sure everyone has done their Safeguarding training, emails volunteers about the weekly sessions, leads the social media of the project, and makes sure everyone is well-informed about the project.
• Project Leader organises the sessions, creates session materials, and overruns the whole project to make sure that the project is running successfully. 

If you want to find out more about the committee structure and about the roles, download the forms from the "Documents for Regular Projects".

Just email us at vteam@essex.ac.uk about the role you're interested in applying for, and we will arrange an informal meeting to talk about you and the role.

You receive your free VTeam T-shirt after you complete the Safeguarding training and send us your signed volunteering agreement form at vteam@essex.ac.uk.

All committee members receive a free VTeam hoodie with their committee position written on it. So, a simple answer is: just become our committee member ;)

Please visit University's specific page for Concern about a friend's mental health and Student Wellbeing and Inclusivity page. Additionally, VTeam staff members are Mental Health First-Aiders. You can email us at vteam@essex.ac.uk with your concern and we will try our best to give you advice on whom you can talk to about this. You can email suadvice@essex.ac.uk for confidential advice on the matter. All reported issues will be dealt with.

You can find all the information and steps to creating a new project here: www.essexstudent.com/volunteering/newprojects/.

Yes. All expense forms are reviewed and signed by the Students’ Union Volunteering Office staff before you get reimbursed.

Yes. All expense refund claims need to have proof (e.g. a receipt). Unfortunately, without proof of this expense you will be unable to claim your money back, so ask for a receipt for everything and keep them!

Travel by car is refunded at 25p per mile. This is often more than it would have cost for petrol, but also goes towards the cost of any wear and tear on the vehicle from this trip. Locate the Start and Finish postcodes for your journey. Using Google Maps you can work out how many miles your trip was. Multiply this by 0.25 and you will have the final figure. Put all of this information on your expense form as this will be checked before being signed off.

Expenses will be signed and ready to collect within 48 hours of submission. However, during busy periods this may be longer. If you need money sent to your bank account, this will be done on the first Friday after your submission.

If you registered for one-off event, you may not receive an email until a few days before the event because we have to gather all of the information first.

If you registered for a regular project, and you have not received an email within a week, please write us an email at vteam@essex.ac.uk with the name of the project you've registered to. We will contact the Communications Officer and see why you have not yet been contacted.

At the end of the year, you can download your skills template from Gradintelligence which lets you keep all of your skills in one place and will help with job applications.

Yes! All the extra-curricular and voluntary activities you do while studying (e.g., VTeam, Peer Mentoring, SU Reps...) are recognized and go towards the points for your award. 

No. We understand that your studies are your priority, and we do not expect you to come to every session. You can come whenever you want to.

If there has been a problem with any volunteer or committee member, please report it to us at vteam@essex.ac.uk.

If you have any specific questions that you did not find an answer to, please contact us and we will happily answer your questions. All our contact details can be found here: www.essexstudent.com/volunteering/vteamcontact/.