What Voluntary Work Can I Do In My Spare Time . . .

[simon43]

Strange question maybe My new job as manager of the hotel that my Thai wife and I own is more a neccessity for eventual PR, (ie having a WP and paying taxes etc), rather than the need to employ someone as hotel manager!! So for most of my time here in the hotel I have little 'real' work to do, (I have my own income from an offshore business).

But I cannot be away from the hotel for any length of time, just in case a customer has a specific problem/question that can't be handled by my wife/staff.

So, is there anything useful that I could be doing whilst twiddling my thumbs at my desk? The voluntary work that I can think of would be teaching English/computer studies to the local schoolkids, but that would require me to be offsite.

I forgot to mention that both my wife and I intend to put aside a few weeks in low season and open our doors for local disabled kids/families. Maybe there is something I could do, such as translations for charities? (I was previously in contact with a UK charity which helped Thai kids re schooling and they needed someone to translate the children's letters from Thai into English for their UK sponsors.) Or maybe I could teach English 'onsite'??

Any suggestions most welcome

Simon

[londonthai]

contact any charity in your area and offer them your help. They will assign a task for your - PR, organising, editing articles, database keeping can be done over the phone and by emails.

[plachon]

Strange question maybe My new job as manager of the hotel that my Thai wife and I own is more a neccessity for eventual PR, (ie having a WP and paying taxes etc), rather than the need to employ someone as hotel manager!! So for most of my time here in the hotel I have little 'real' work to do, (I have my own income from an offshore business).

But I cannot be away from the hotel for any length of time, just in case a customer has a specific problem/question that can't be handled by my wife/staff.

So, is there anything useful that I could be doing whilst twiddling my thumbs at my desk? The voluntary work that I can think of would be teaching English/computer studies to the local schoolkids, but that would require me to be offsite.

I forgot to mention that both my wife and I intend to put aside a few weeks in low season and open our doors for local disabled kids/families. Maybe there is something I could do, such as translations for charities? (I was previously in contact with a UK charity which helped Thai kids re schooling and they needed someone to translate the children's letters from Thai into English for their UK sponsors.) Or maybe I could teach English 'onsite'??

Any suggestions most welcome

Simon

Hi Simon,

what happended to the MSc courses I seem to recall you were enrolled on? I was pretty amazed at the time that you said you were doing two by correspondence, which is some workload, so did they get too much in end or are you now an overqualified, under-employed hotel receptionist? What were the subjects again?

I am sure that there would be charities out there who could do with some voluntary help, but don't know any myself and it would most likely be the small ones which are understaffed and under-funded. There is a directory of Thai NGOs some place which could be a help if you could track it down through one of the large NGOs on-line.

Good luck!

[simon43]

Well, I signed up for the online MSc in Renewable Energy Systems. But I had some issues with them classifying me as an overseas student and trying to charge me a very high fee. (Actually, they were probably correct in their decision, but as a born-and-bred British citizen I felt their decision was a little unfair....)

The suggestion to do PR/admin for a local charity is a good one. I do all the PR/marketing for our hotel and seem quite successful in pulling in the guests!

Simon