Another Cats Protection volunteer here.
I run our branch website. As part of that, and using my skills as a former pro snappy, I photograph all the cats coming in to our fosterers. I also help with baking cakes and breads and making preserves to sell at our various fundraisers throughout the year. Plus I will do emergency short term fostering when we are very pressed for pen space. Last but not least, I provide specials and prizes for our main fundraising event - a pet cat show held second Saturday in March. (Which reminds, I must start putting my acquisitions in a box ready to take down to the show hall next week...)
Also used to volunteer for the local branch of the Red Cross before it folded. Mum roped me into it shortly after she started out, and we did it together for about five years. The branch did medical loans (now centralised somewhere in Essex!) and held a monthly jumble. My job - which certainly had its moments - was to sort out all the incoming donations, store what was suitable and take to the recycling centre what was not.
Many years ago, the parentals and I used to sponsor a convent-run orphanage and daycare centre in Poland - just before and immediately after the fall of communism. That was really rewarding. At the same time, we were also among a bunch of volunteers who were collecting the remnants from jumble sales and sorting the good clothes out to send to disadvantaged people in Poland. That was hard and dirty work - I'd regularly come home from school, hardly be able to get into the house, then be up till gone midnight with mum, sorting good from bad, then sorting the good stuff according to men's, ladies' and kids. I picked up quite a few detentions due to late homework, but hey ho...
But we always winkled out decent clothes and toys for the orphanage, and I used to save part of my pocket money to buy sweets and stuff for the kids. Four or five times a year we used to send a consignment of stuff out - when we started, these poor kids had nothing, and the first parcel arrived out of the blue during a parish meeting where they were discussing exactly how they were going to try and find the resources to do something for the kids for Christmas. The mother superior of the convent was a lovely person - always so grateful for everything and used to send us photos and letter updates from the kids, while the parish priest always used to say a mass for us every week. Mum and I were also sent (the whole parish pitched in and had it made specially for us) a complete regional outfit each - hand woven and hand embroidered.
After a few years, the mother superior was promoted to running a bigger orphanage in another part of Poland, and the new mother superior of the convent was a completely different kettle of fish. The first parcel that came from us after she took over, she wrote a letter to let us know it had arrived safely, but that the clothes were all secondhand and that the sweets were short dated, and that next time, could we please send new clothes and better sweets. That was the last time we ever sent anything.
As an aside
@Mrs M - the atmosphere of a branch (not just CP) really does depend on the co-ordinator and the other volunteers. I'm really lucky to work with a great bunch of people at CP, but some of the Red Cross ladies were a bit much.