WAO ANNUAL REPORT 2009 - Women's Aid Organisation

4.0 VOLUNTEERS AND MEMBERS
In 2009, we reached out to members and kept them updated through an e-group. At WAO ,we
make a distinction between volunteers and members. Not all volunteers are members and not
all members volunteer regularly. However, the EXCO is made up of members and all members
are eligible to attend and vote at each AGM. Ultimately the EXCO is accountable to its members
which total 176 members.
4. 1 Volunteer Development
In 2009, orientations and meetings were held every first and third Saturday of each month.
These fortnightly meetings were coordinated by Annie Varghese, Mardhiah Yaakob and Ariane
Le Jeune. However, due to the increased amount of fundraising events that fell on weekends,
there were months when we were not able to carry out the meetings.
We conducted 8 volunteer orientations on an average of one every other month. In total, 48
volunteers went though the orientations, out of which 20 remained as volunteers and another
19 became members.
This year, we saw more working adults as volunteers. New volunteers became aware of WAO
through the media, website, friends, universities/colleges, magazines and seminars. We had 98
volunteers in total for 2009. However, it was also noted that a large percentage of these
volunteers were not active as they had only attended the orientation to learn about the
organisation out of curiosity. Most of them were unable to join any of the activities on a regular
basis due to work, studies or personal reasons. However, despite all this, we were fortunate to
have retained a good number of them who were able to volunteer at the Refuge and CCC.
4.2 Volunteer Activities
We arranged two (2) talks for volunteers last year. Jessie Ang, a social worker spoke about
Domestic Violence while Suren S. from Malaysian Aids Council spoke on HIV and AIDS.
Volunteers helped out in most public education and fundraising activities, administrative work,
jumble sales, setting up booths and selling tickets for charity premieres.
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