Getting Involved: Employment and volunteering with Olive Co-operative

• Olive office work (temporary contract)
• Marketing for Olive Co-operative
• Promoting Palestinian suppliers
• Selling Fairly Traded Palestinian Products
• Product Development in Palestine
• Volunteering in Olive office
• Tour Guide Vacancies

Olive office work (temporary contract)

Purpose: To deliver high standards of customer service in Olive's Manchester office and on stalls.

Terms and Conditions: Standard Olive pay of £6 per hour worked. 5 to 10 hours work per week (worked in a regular pattern between Monday-Friday 9am-5pm), depending on needs of Olive and of worker. Maximum contract of three months at one time. Reporting to: Nominated Olive office based employee.

Career progression: Temporary contract work could be a route into further employment with Olive Co-op at higher levels of skill and responsibility and hence into full co-op membership. For example, an Olive office worker could take on managing additional responsibilities such as book-keeping, tour enquiries, HR, IT; and this would qualify them to become a eligible for membership and a permanent contract.

Job description.

1. General office work including answering phone, dealing with post, taking deliveries, dealing with customers and collections in the office, stacking shelves and keeping office looking presentable, depositing cash and cheques in the Bank.

2. On-line shop orders including packing and posting orders, taking payment, dealing with new queries, dealing with out of stock issues.

3. Trees for Life sponsorships including accurate data entry, taking payment, sending out letters, certificates and gift cards.

4. Occasional agreed stalls including booking and confirmation, packing and transporting stalls, setting up and staffing stall, dealing with customers, packing up and returning stall products and income.

Person specification

1. Voluntary work with Olive Co-op sufficient to learn all regular tasks in job description.

2. Fast and efficient working style with attention to detail.

3. Excellent communication skills.

4. Experience of customer service and administration work.

5. Self-motivated and able to work unsupervised using own initiative.

6. Knowledge of issues around fair trade and Palestine/Israel or ability to learn.

To apply Visit and talk with staff in Olive office during advertised opening times. Please bring a copy of your CV or application letter.

Marketing for Olive Co-operative

Would a wholefood shop near you be interested in stocking Palestinian olive oil?  Would your favourite gift shop like to sell embroidery from a women's handicraft collective in the West Bank?  Would you like to see Olive's leaflets in your local Arabic takeaway? Olive Co operative welcomes people taking the initiate to help us market our products and tours. Please feel free to pick up some leaflets from our office and help us to distribute them is suitable places, or contact local shops to enquire about whether they would be interested in stocking any of our products.

If you have any questions or would like more information about our suppliers, please contact anan(AT)olivecoop.com

Promoting Palestinian suppliers

A volunteer is needed to gather graphics to promote Olive's top 18 to 20 Palestinian suppliers. Appropriate logos and photographs need to be gathered, re-sized, inserted and uploaded on Olive's on-line information [insert url link]. This may take 3-6 hours with broadband. This valuable work will lead to increased sales of Palestinian supplier's products. Future developments could include a hard copy catalogue. Please be in touch with the office for more detailed discussion of your preferences.

Selling Fairly Traded Palestinian Products

We are always interested in hearing from people who are interested in selling Olive Co-operative's fairly traded Palestinian products to your networks anywhere in the UK. Olive Co-op can offer favourable terms, support and discounts for people intending to run stalls or other events. Favourable terms include 5% off for purchases of £100 or more, and 10% off for purchases of £200 or more. In addition, Olive Co-op will buy-back any un-sold products in good condition, so risks are very low. Please place a provisional order on the on-line shop to give an idea of the products you would like. Please be in touch with the office for more detailed discussion of your preferences.

Product Development in Palestine

Olive Co-op needs volunteers to develop products in Palestine. You would be placed for one to three weeks with one or more of our fair trade suppliers such as Dehaishe Womens Embroidery Collective in Bethlehem, Project Hope in Nablus or Trees for Life in Jenin.

You would work with Olive Co-operative and Palestinian suppliers to develop new and existing products and services to meet demand from UK customers. This includes taking marketing photographs of products, production processes and people; writing up interviews with suppliers, writing short and/or long marketing descriptions for use on-line and with product packaging; helping suppliers to develop new specific products and services to meet demand from UK customers.

Volunteers will be provided with full training, support and fundraising assistance from the UK and free accomodation in Palestine. You can participate for a nominal contribution in any Olive tours that coincide with your placement. You will need to cover your own flight (around £250), transport (around £20 per week) and out of pocket expenses (around £4 to £10 per day). You will need excellent e-mail, telephone and written communication skills in English.

To apply for a placement in Palestine, please contact the Olive office.

Volunteering in Olive office

Olive Co-op is always interested in hearing from volunteers in the Manchester area who would like to help with tasks in the office, with running stalls or events or with other activities as appropriate. In return we will endeavour to offer interesting tasks and useful training and experience. Volunteers who have shown they can do a particular job are then in a strong position to apply for any vacancies. If you have time and skills you would like to contribute, please call into the office at Bridge 5 Mill, 22a Beswick St, Manchester M4 7HR or email us your CV.

Tour Guide Vacancies

If you are interested in becoming a tour guide for Olive Co-operative, click for more details.

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