Te Kūiti Citizens Advice Bureau comprises 15 volunteers who serve their own town, plus Taumarunui and Ōtorohanga.
They are rostered to work in pairs from 10am to 1pm, Monday to Friday. In addition the CAB offers a Justice of the Peace hour on Tuesday and monthly legal clinics.
CAB coordinator Patrick Hine said the group was always on the lookout to train up new people.
“It’s certainly a commitment but there is flexibility within that; we have a roster and if there is a trip you want to take, or grandchildren you want to look after then you say I am not available that week,” Patrick said.
“We are filling 10 slots per week so at 15 generally we’ve got it covered – but not always completely comfortably.”
Two days a week, staff at Te Kūiti took their turn at fielding nationwide 0800 calls to CAB.
“We got three calls from Christchurch yesterday, but with a first-class database we are able to research and provide information [which will be] useful to such callers,” Patrick said.
There were many other aspects of the work Patrick would like to devote time to.
“Fifteen volunteers is enough, but I feel probably barely enough to do it all comfortably. When I joined five years ago there were 18 or 19 volunteers. If we had 20 it would be great.”
People came to CAB with a vast array of challenges, regarding matters as diverse as tenancy and employment, consumer issues; family law and guardianship type inquiries, immigration matters, wills and enquiries regarding the likes of enduring powers of attorney.
“It could be as simple as someone who was new in town coming to CAB to check out the clubs and organisations there were to join. And we have about 200 such groups in Te Kūiti alone,” Patrick said.
Trish Neal has volunteered for Te Kūiti CAB for 23 years and has loved every minute of it. She pointed out the organisation was widely respected for its track record of efficiency.
“Some years ago, Wellington City Council was looking at cutting the funding of the city’s CAB. And during that process a company came in to measure its performance and found, considering what it cost to run, there was no other service in New Zealand that could compare with its productivity, or deliver its outcomes. The secret is that CAB is staffed by motivated volunteers who work face-to-face with the clients, or speak on the phone with them. The volunteers want to be there, and care about the people they are trying to help.”
Trish, who is a JP, appreciated the stimulation of working alongside the motivated colleagues who staffed the organisation, as well as the opportunities it presented to learn more about her community. Volunteering had allowed her to look below the surface to understand how services and organisations in the district really worked. And the satisfaction of helping people find an answer to a problem which had stumped them was priceless.
“We are independent and neutral,” Trish said. “We listen carefully to people and ask questions to understand their position. We are not judgmental or critical; the aim is to give people options as to what they can do to progress solving their issues or problems.”
Patrick added that even if the answer, after checking the database and the resources available to CAB, was that a solution could not easily be found for their problem, this too could be a resolution of sorts.
All enquires were written up anonymously and sent to the national office, where a social policy team studied them to pick up trends occurring across the country.
“And they will make submissions to the Government to try to improve things.
“One major finding has been the amount of New Zealanders who are digitally excluded these days – they need to do business by using the internet but they are unable to do so,” Trish said.
Patrick added: “We can download forms for them and documents that they need. Many Government departments still allow people to apply in hard copy, which some folk really like doing. So we often, print it off and get the client away with a hard copy. Or, sometimes we do help people through an online [application] process.”
