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At Volunteer Ireland we use the painting guidelines set out below when planning and delivering events for our large-scale corporate partners. We find that following these guidelines ensure we can deliver a well-managed, successful volunteer project.
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- Designate a room or space (indoors or outdoors) as your staging area. A staging area is the location where you assemble all the tools and supplies required for you and your volunteers on the project day.
- Ask volunteers to collect and return all items to this location. They can return for additional items throughout the day as needed e.g., extra gloves, paintbrushes, paint and so on.
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Volunteer Meeting/Assembly Area
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- Start and end the day in the meeting/assembly area. This is where volunteers will sign in, get a name badge, grab a cuppa, receive an introduction to the organisation, the plan for the day and break into teams if needed.
- Sometimes this is the same location as the Staging Area, if it is, be sure you have enough room for everyone to move about safely.
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- Shoe covers protect your shoes and the floors too. Remind people to put on or remove shoe covers as they enter and exit areas with or without dustsheets. Without shoe covers paint can be easily tracked around the building or outdoors resulting in a huge clean-up project for the organisation and volunteers. This is a quality issue for the company and the organisation… no one wants paint left all over the floors.
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- Dustsheets need to be fully taped down. Tape should be attached to the floor right up to the edge of the skirting boards so the floors are not visible.
- If you are painting the skirting boards the tape should not be covering the skirting boards.
- You might find you need to re-tape as the day goes on as dustsheets move throughout the day as people walk on them.
- Sometimes dustsheets will need to be cut up to fit unusual shapes in a room or corridor. If you have old dustsheets this is a good use for them.
- Be sure to slide dustsheets under doors and tape them down. Again, no areas of the floor should be visible.
- Tape off all door handles, hinges and light switches as it’s easy to transfer paint from your hands/gloves to these locations.
- Tape off all windows if painting window frames.
- Tape off ceilings. This is particularly important if you are not painting the ceiling or if there is a tiled ceiling.
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- Do not open paint until your area/room is completely taped off. Understandably volunteers are always eager to get started but in any painting project the prep is the most important thing.
- Cutting in – this means painting all the edges (next to skirting boards, ceiling, windows, corners, door frames, light switches etc) in the room first. Once this is completed you can then paint the rest of the walls with rollers.
- Use paintbrushes when cutting in. Rollers can be used afterwards for the main part of the wall.
- Remember, cutting in is very important and is another step in ensuring a quality project.
- Ask volunteers to share paint trays to minimise paint wastage. Keep in mind there are usually a limited number of trays, paintbrushes and roller sleeves available so don’t use all your containers, paintbrushes or roller sleeves on your first colour.
- Remember you will need to have enough containers, painter brushes and roller sleeves for all the colours in your room. A suggestion, if one volunteer finishes using a paint tray, paintbrush etc. in a particular colour ask the next volunteer who needs to use that colour to use the same paint tray and paintbrush.
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- Clean up is part of the volunteering activity. About an hour before the project is due to finish, we recommend assigning a small number of volunteers to start cleaning up i.e., returning supplies to the staging area, washing paint brushes, returning paint to paint tins. People often get tired at this point in the day, but they will need to stay and help with the clean-up as the organisation won’t have the capacity to do this on their own.
- If the project is taking place across several days return all paint trays and paint brushes to the staging room, cover them in clingfilm so they will stay moist and be usable the following day.
- Ideally, we suggest removing dustsheets and tape the following day when the paint has completely dried. This reduces the mess and chance of paint getting everywhere.
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- Remember to thank people throughout the day, let them know how much their work is appreciated and how much the organisation and its clients will love the freshly painted surroundings.
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