Volunteer information
OpenGate Churches desire to be a group of churches that are 'touching heaven, and changing earth'. We aim to encourage and facilitate everyone to have relationship and encounters with God. The heart beat of making this a reality is volunteers. We are truly blessed by the care, time, love, devotion, energy ... that each person gives to help us fulfil that vision. Thank you for being willing to serve in whichever way God is calling you to at this time.
On this page you will find our volunteering policy and other useful information, including links to training.
Volunteering Policy: VolunteersPolicy7102020.docx
Children, Youth and Vulnerable adults
If you are helping with children, young people or vulnerable adults you will need a DBS check and Safeguarding training before you can start. Please contact your local safeguarding lead for more information. Oxfordshire Community Churches Safeguarding Policy
We recognise Children as being in Primary School or younger, and Youth as being under 18 and until the end of school year 13 (end of 6th Form).
Include application form from Safeguarding document.
Social media
As a family of churches we recognise that much of our communication and visible presence can be on social media. Please use the following guidelines when making use of social media as a representative, or in the name of OpenGate or one of our churches. SocialMediaguidelines.pdf
GDPR
GDPR training to be included when available.
Expenses
In some circumstances you may need to claim expenses, these should be approved by a church and/or activity lead in advance. For more details the full OCC policy is here: PL15ExpensesPolicyv.1.3.pdf
Mileage claim not applicable to a meeting you would expect to attend if not volunteering, as with other expenses seek approval in advance - VolunteerMileageClaim.pdf
Unavailability on ChurchSuite
OpenGate Churches use ChurchSuite for much of our information handling,
For information on how to add your unavailability please see this document: ChurchSuite unavailability