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Pair clocks up 40 years of ‘warm guidance’

Flagstaff Team

Retiring duo… Gabrielle Fraser (left) and Ros Dolan are winding up their volunteer work at the Takapuna Citizens Advice Bureau

Two women who have each volunteered at Citizens Advice Bureau on and off for over 40 years are winding up their service by recommending others give it a go.

“It’s good to help someone and see them walk out with a smile when they perhaps came in in tears,” said Ros Dolan, from Takapuna, who began volunteering in 1982.

Gabrielle Fraser, from Milford, who began helping at the Takapuna CAB in 1979 – just a year after it opened – said over time issues had become more complex.

Complaints about neighbours and how to deal with marriage breaks-up were hardy annuals, with immigration and tenancy matters a growing concern.

Some clients grappled with social and physical problems. All appreciated a friendly smile and a willing ear.

“Mostly people need to talk face-to-face when they’ve got a problem,” Dolan said. Frustration set in when people were dealing remotely by email with the likes of government departments.

This is something the two volunteers have experienced themselves when trying to help clients. “I do find the difference between then and now is you could give them phone numbers and they could get the right person on the line,” Fraser said. Navigating the court system is another challenge, Dolan said, especially since North Shore lost a helpful liaison person.

But the women – Dolan in her 70s and Fraser past 80 – say volunteering has kept them up to date, exposing them to a diverse range of people and training them in technology.

As volunteers, they have gone from being newbies nervously answering calls to confidently navigating information for clients. “Every time, I learned something,” Dolan said.

When Fraser began volunteering she sometimes had her youngest of four children in the next room, with the others at school. After a tint at the Takapuna CAB, the then Bayswater resident volunteered at the Devonport visitor information centre. She was a paid supervisor at the Glenfield CAB for around five years, but since 2014 she was back on the Takapuna CAB volunteer roster.

For Dolan, the youngest of her two children being at primary school was her prompt to volunteer, first at Browns Bay and then at Takapuna. “I just got to the stage I wanted something to do, but I didn’t want to go back to work,” she said. She has been on the CAB committee and helped with peer reviewing, as well as helping in her husband’s insurance-broking business. All up, she estimates her CAB time at 34 years.

Takapuna CAB manager Alison Jones and colleagues thanked Fraser and Dolan for their “extraordinary” service at a lunch this month. The women’s “gentle warmth and warm guidance” would be missed, said Jones.

Dolan is these days wanting to spend more time with family in the South Island. Fraser is staying put in Milford, but will have more time for helping the Foundation for the Blind, church and family.

Both women expect their CAB skills will remain handy.

“We can still help people in our own area,” says Fraser. “If we can’t answer we can tell them where to go.”

How to get started in community volunteering

Organisations including Citizens Advice Bureau run training intakes for new volunteers from time to time. Contact a local group you would like to help to see if they are in need of assistance currently or when the next intake is. For wider ideas about volunteering opportunities go to volunteeringauckland.org.nz.


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