Volunteering at CGX
CGX’s volunteering opportunities are split into 5 main ‘works’ areas.
All are welcoming volunteers!
Get in touch and we will work out with you what times suit you to volunteer.
CYCLE WORKS
CGX receives many donations of second-hand bikes from the community and gives even the most broken and battered of them a new lease of life!
Under the coaching of one of our friendly workshop supervisors, Cycle Works volunteering can teach you all the ins and outs of bike refurbishment: from bike ‘stripping’ (for parts to be reused), to brake and gear calibration, wheel repair and building, pedal care and repair. You’ll also learn how to fully clean and maintain a bike, how to check parts for wear and sort them accordingly, and how to maintain a bike workshop.
You will also be involved in setting up bikes for customers.
Every bike you work on will be sold in our shop and reused!
Cycle Works is perhaps the most popular of our volunteering and training opportunities. Still, if you want to join us here, especially if you are looking for work experience and training in bike maintenance, we will do our best to fit you in!
If you’re already an experienced bike engineer, then please come and share your skills with others!
RETAIL WORKS
CGX has two second-hand goods shops on Ayr High Street, ‘Reusables’ which sells small items and white goods, and ‘Refurnish’ which sells the bikes and furniture restored by our Restoration Works and Cycle Works volunteers and programme participants.
If you chose to join us in Retail Works, your role could include recording sales and refunds, handling cash and card payments, assisting customers, receiving material donations, creating displays for visual merchandising, and organising and pricing our stock.
We rely on volunteers to run our shops, and as their proceeds go into paying our staff and the other Works programmes, Retail Works are an integral part of our financial upkeep.
Perhaps you’ve got the retail experience you’d like to share with us, or maybe you want work experience in retail. Whichever it is, Retail Works will be happy to have your help!
FURNITURE WORKS
As well as bikes, CGX receives a lot of donated furniture and second-hand white goods.
Some of this stock is in good enough repair to sell straight away in ‘Project CGX’ and ‘Reusables’ to generate income for our social enterprise. Still, some require either minor or major restoration before being sold.
Furniture Works is another fantastic opportunity for those looking for work experience and training.
Supervisors will teach skills in furniture restoration, including how to clean pieces properly, how to use power tools safely, and how to sand, paint, varnish and polish, to get pieces ready for resale.
You will also learn about how to implement Health and Safety policies and practices, and how to manage a workshop safely.
Furniture Works is also a great place to unleash your creativity, upcycling those tired-looking pieces among our stock, using techniques like decoupage, stencilling, painting, and any other kinds of craft you might enjoy.
For those who love textiles, we have an entire room full of lounge and dining
chairs in need of re-upholstery to ensure they comply with fire safety standards.
All the tools you’ll need are here, though if you have gifts of your own, tools and experience to share, all will be welcome!
LOGISTICS WORKS
CGX can pick up and deliver for the pick up locally some unwanted second-hand goods, and deliver the furniture they have bought in our shop.
We have a van that is used for the above, to co-ordinate this we need a dedicated support team to help shift the furniture safely from storage or the shop floor to local people’s homes.
In Logistics works, there are opportunities to grow some brawn and brains! At CGX moving furniture is a regular activity that needs strength but will also teach you how to safely lift and move a range of items, if you’d benefit from van driving practice, then come and be on the van driving rota, performing pick-ups and deliveries all over SouthAyrshire.
If all this is too much like hard work, then come and help us organise our pick-ups and deliveries, making arrangements with customers over the phone and coordinating journeys.
ADMIN WORKS
It’s not the most glamourous of the works, but that’s why we need your help in this area more than ever
-The CGX operation just wouldn’t run without the work of our admin team!
There are loads to be done in front of that computer screen -payrolls, budgets for fundraising, data entry, poster and leaflet design for marketing answering emails, communicating with other organisations, the list goes on!
And if you’re after experience in admin, once again, we can help you.
Our admin manager can take one person per afternoon for training in Quickbooks, Microsoft Office, Google Docs and all sorts of other things that will help you to get those admin qualifications that employers want to see.
