Hold a successful open night
Whether you're holding an open night (or day) to attract volunteers or simply opening your station to the public, you’ll want to make it a success. With some planning, you can be well prepared and play to the strengths of your volunteers. Giving your confident and outgoing members the tasks of meeting and greeting people is a good start.
This run sheet will help you to prepare for your open night (or day). It provides suggestions about:
- the type of information people will be interested in
- ideas for chatting with the public about your role and what volunteering involves
- ways to make your station welcoming
- useful resources, booklets, and giveaways.
If you’ve got people visiting your station, you'll want to make them comfortable - particularly if you’re hoping that they would like to volunteer with you. Use these tips as a guide to making your guests welcome and their visit an interesting one. You might like to discuss these as a team and help allocate tasks:
- Get your team together before the event and talk about how the open night, (or day), might run
- Think about which volunteers may be more people oriented, and give them roles to greet and meet the public
- Give each volunteer a specific task
- Make sure your volunteers have the same information about your station, such as the number of call-outs you attend, the number of volunteers, the area you cover
- Make sure your volunteers are clear about the benefits of volunteering, the process for applying, and the commitment required
- As a group, brainstorm some ideas for anecdotes or stories you can share that will help with conversation, and ways to break the ice.
Download our Tip-sheet for making your guests welcome for more ideas.
Whether your event is at the station or at a community location, having the right resources available will help you to talk about volunteering and draw people to your stand or station.
Promotional materials
We have booklets for potential volunteers to learn more about the role. The ‘Join the crew’ booklets are a friendly introduction to volunteering at Fire and Emergency New Zealand. The 'Volunteer with us' is more in-depth and is a great starting point when talking in detail with potential volunteers.
You can order booklets by completing the Volunteer order form.
Careers day hand-out
[PDF, 532 KB]This careers day hand-out [PDF, 532 KB] for secondary school students introduces the different roles and describes the benefits that might entice young people to volunteer with us, such as the opportunity to learn new and transferrable skills.
This PowerPoint presentation introduces people to volunteering at Fire and Emergency New Zealand. It explains:
- who can volunteer
- the different volunteer roles
- the commitment required including regular training
- the benefits of volunteering with Fire and Emergency
- how to join, Police vetting and medical tests.
The audience is encouraged to sign the Volunteer Registration Form or to join a training night if they’re interested in finding out more.
We've designed this presentation [PPTX, 32 MB] for you to show on a monitor when you open your station to the public. It will loop continuously. You may also wish to print off a copy to give away or as a guide to talking about volunteering.
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