Cooking Project Leader Volunteers - FoodCycle

FoodCycle combines surplus food, volunteers and free kitchen space to create nutritious, three-course meals for the community.

FoodCycle has four main aims:

• To strengthen communities
• To encourage friendships
• To improve nutrition and reduce hunger
• To change attitudes towards food and to reduce food waste. 

Cooking Project Leader Volunteers take on the overall delivery of the meal.  These people are passionate, committed and want to make a positive change within their community, they take ownership of their project and make decisions on the ground.

As a Cooking Project Lead volunteer cook, you will be responsible for:

• Running cooking sessions, leading a team of volunteers to create a three-course meal in a limited timeframe
• Ensuring the team are following the food safety procedures set out in our kitchen handbook
• Inducting new volunteers into the kitchen
• Encouraging the whole kitchen team to input into planning a tasty, healthy and nutritionally balance menu
• Communicating with other leaders to ensure the store of dry/tinned goods is kept well stocked.
• Completing the weekly checklist in the kitchen handbook and reporting on the session on My FoodCycle
• Reporting any accidents and incidents
• Together with the hosting leader, recognising, responding to and reporting any safeguarding issues or concerns.

Skills you will learn from becoming a Cooking Project Leader Volunteer:

• Teamwork: you’ll work as part of a team to prepare a delicious meal and serve it to our guests
• Leadership and delegation: we will train you up to lead cooking sessions and induct new members
• Cooking: you will learn how to cater for large numbers of guests and how to make nutritionally balanced meals
• Problem solving: you won’t always know what your ingredients will be so you will need to get creative to produce delicious meals
• Relationship building: you’ll be building lasting relationships with your guests and volunteers

 What to expect from FoodCycle:

• Ongoing regular visits, support and advice
• A training package to equip you for your role
• Training throughout the year including safeguarding and first aid
• Impressive skills to add to your CV and a reference when you need it.
• Accredited level 2 food safety qualification provided by FoodCycle
• The opportunity to meet a large network of like-minded people
• A fun creative volunteer experience with ownership of a community led project

  What is expected of me:

• Follow all FoodCycle Policies and procedures
• You will need to shadow another volunteer leader before you are able to lead your own session.