Volunteer programs/options

A little more info about the group? Ages, the basis for the club..is it affiliated with an organization?

It's a women's service organization. Most of the members are in their 50's. We disburse money, from our fundraisers, to other needy community organizations. About half the members are still working full time.

Get a doctor in...some of our most well attended lunches when I went to work were when they had doctors in...the most popular subjects were plastic surgery and dermatology to learn about skin care and various treatment options, sleep specialists and how to deal with sleep disorders, menopause specialists, depression. We also had good response with people who talked about relaxation and stress reduction including holding a few short meditations, and we even had a gal who did laughter therapy where we spent a lot of time laughing about nothing.

Women's shelter

League of Women voters (non-partisan)

Food pantries, other organizations that help the poor

Mine is personal. Have found that few people are aware of Therapy Dog Programs and the wide entities they touch.

We are always looking for groups that will welcome us to touch other's hearts. School/Library programs where the children enhance their reading skills by reading a book to a Therapy Dog. The veterans and local military bases (greeting or sending off our soldiers) visiting special programs they are involved with, hospitals, retirement homes, people recovering from disasters, children with disabilities (adults too), single/group therapy. We visit with our dogs for comfort. Should you contact a Therapy Dog program in your area, they will most likely bring their dogs with them and share a great deal about the many experiences of love.

I posted an image link for you to see the many areas we are involved in. You can do a search for Therapy Dogs in your city to find a group nearby.

Here is a link that might be useful: Therapy Dogs

Tried to edit my post, but for some reason it showed up with garbage.

Wanted to add that we do this for love. No money is ever received or asked for in being part of the programs. We have connected groups which are usually scheduled or go whenever a request comes in. Sometimes we will visit on our own knowing a program has welcomed us at any time.

This may seem odd, but it comes from my own experience.

How about getting someone from a local beekeeping association to come in and talk about bees and beekeeping?

I "accidentally" became a beekeeper in the last year and fnd it very fascinating. But what I was really surprised to discover is how many other people are really keen to hear more about honey bees.

There's been a lot of recent publicity about the threats to bee health and survival, so that may be it.

But an astounding number of people that I happened to mention my bees to this summer were keen enough to pursue the subject with more questions and even requests to come and see my hives. I've actually had to start turning down requests to visit because after a certain point the girls don't lke having their homes opened up for publiic gawking.

Everybody who comes to my house, for any reason: delivery men, the guy who was getting my power back on after an outage, the Jehovah's Witnesses, various political canvassers, who see my hives in my dooryard wanted to know more about the bees. My vet wanted to come see, a lady running the lemonade stand at my county Fair, the car rental clerk at the airport, my car mechanic's wife, several of my DH's solar clients: everybody wants to know about bees and beekeeping and they go to the trouble of driving way out into the country and suiting up to look in the hives.

Many local Beekeepers Associations have experienced speakers with good slide or Ppt presentations as well as various practical props (opened, but empty!) hives, honey extraction equipment, bee protective gear, etc. and lots of amusing stories about bees. You probably wouldn't get live bees at a meeting/presentation, especially in cold weather because it is complicated (for reasons related to the bees getting confused and lost) to move working hives full of live bees. However there are some clubs who do have traveling, glassed-in, observation hives with live bees inside that can be displayed indoors. These allow people to see the activity going on inside the hive which is usually concealed from view. Bees can be pretty cute, when looked at through glass, even to normally insect-averse people.

Bees can be kept in any type of area, including on rooftops in big cities. And beekeeping clubs are keen to support beekeeping and encourage public understanding and support for honey bees.

Keeping bugs for pets (or honey) is not everybody's idea of fun, but I've been floored by the number of people say they want to know more about keeping bees.

And that can't be a bad thing for the bees, because the more people are aware of what the threats to bees are, the more people will be motivated to make bee-friendly choices in their daily lives. And a world w/o bees would be a world without much of the food we are accustomed to.

Below is a link from a commercial vendor of beekeeping equipment which has a search page to locate bee clubs and associations across the country. If that doesn't turn up something useful, you could just try a google search for your area.

HTH

L.

Here is a link that might be useful: Link to a listing of bee clubs and associations

Social media safety and/or personal safety?

How about...um...decorating! Get a decorator or designer to talk about color, accessorizing...whatever...

Book reviews!

Quilting
How to Journal
Writing a Memoir
Long Term Care Insurance
Wills, Trusts, etc.
Online Productivity Tools (banking, etc.)
Various vacation spots

I used to run a moms group (for moms of young kids in our area) and we had two evening meetings a month, about 1/3 with guest speakers. One of the best ones was when we had an ob/gyn and people could write questions anonymously on index cards, and she answered them.

Weekend travel destinations? Travel agent guest speaker?
How to plan a trip online.
Holiday/seasonal crafts w/ demonstrations?
A book swap -- each person brings one of her favorite books, do a Yankee swap.
Personal shopper to talk about wardrobe essentials or how to determine what colors look good on you.
How to buy art. Have a gallery owner speak?
Little known "gems" in your area -- this could be a series -- restaurants, shops, walking paths/routes, historic sites, etc.
Budget friendly holiday entertaining.
Making your home welcoming for holiday guests -- setting up the guest room, stocking the fridge, planning meals, etc.

I second the idea of getting a doctor in. My husband is a chiropractor and does free lectures for women's groups ALL the time and everyone loves them.

Popular programs for women's groups around the age group that you are referring to center around:
Balancing hormones naturally
Looking and feeling younger
Healthy/natural weight loss solutions.

He's part of an organization that does this not just in our area (Wernersville PA) but also throughout the U.S... If you are interested, I could find out the name of the organization (or if you are in the area, email me, I'm sure I could probably get him to go and talk to your group for free at a meeting)

Liriodendron, funny, I was going to suggest a program about mason bees. I do a presentation on them that is well-received, and in fact I have more requests to present than I can fill. Get a local person to make some mason bee habitats and sell them at the meeting and use the profits to fund another project.

Good apps to have on a phone.

I just learned that there is a tv remote control app...great for family members who "lose the remote". Nike also has a running app that uses gps and tracks your run. These are just 2 that i like.

Fashion is always a hot topic too...a speaker from a local store to talk about styles and bring some samples or even a mini fashion show was always a draw too.

Oh and I'm addicted to watching double divas...and it's true that the vast majority of women are in the wrong size bra....so if you can have a professional bra fitter come in I think it would be great. Nothing like having the girls back up where they belong to make a woman feel terrific.

This post was edited by AnnieDeighnaugh on Sun, Oct 27, 13 at 7:56

How about getting in a speaker about the affordable health care act? Not someone from an insurance company or political party, but someone from a community center or senior center (not that you're technically seniors) who is a designated "navigator" for the ACA. Everybody talks about the plans and implementation without knowing anything about it. Knowledge is always good!

I would also have an art teacher come in and provide each woman with paints, canvas and brush and a subject --- a still life--- and give a rudimentary lesson. You never know who this might spark an interest in, and even for non artistic types it can be illuminating to look at an object and see something one has never seen before--- like negative space, perhaps.

Finally, I would welcome a program on Christmas or winter holiday traditions, involving the members themselves. Perhaps they have an interesting religious, cultural or ethnic tradition--- or maybe a family tradition they started themselves. They could bring either a costume or group of ornaments, or music, or a written recipe or something that epitomizes their own family Christmas or Hannukah. People are going to be pulling that stuff out soon anyway :-)

Thank you for all your ideas. Many are things we've done before but there were a few new ideas I can use. I appreciate the help, I've been drawing a blank after so many years of doing the program planning.

I'll 2nd technicolor about therapy dog programs being great. We've had service, therapy, and police dogs, which were all very popular programs and very different from one another.

I just want to say this thread is a great example of why I love this forum. So many great ideas!

Something fun like getting the best use of your iphone/ ipad is always popular. Also something on how to and do's don'ts on social media like FB, Instagram, Twitter, Pintrust etc. Someone from your local city talking about city's specific initiatives on your area.

At work we used to have fire safety training including how to use a fire extinguisher where we'd go outside and learn how to use one...the firemen came and gave lessons. Also CPR training is a good thing to have.

We also had a gerontologist come and speak...she was fascinating...so many people dealing with their own aging or aging parents.