Help in Guesthouse & Hostel

Location: Waterford city, Ireland

**1 helper needed as soon as possible to cover early leaver**
Helpers also needed for August/ September/ October / November***

We are a hostel and guesthouse in Waterford city in the sunny south-east of Ireland that opened in September 2014 and we are looking for volunteers for August / September/ October 2017.
Waterford is the oldest city in Ireland (1100 years old) - it's an hour and three quarters from both Cork and Dublin and well served by rail and buses. The city itself has lots of festivals and plenty to see and do. Nearby there are some of Ireland's nicest beaches and surf spots at Tramore and Dunmore East.

The property is currently in operation, mainly as a guesthouse - we hope to expand the hostel but for now the help is mainly all aspects of the property - cleaning, changing beds, laundry, reception and very importantly, talking and socialising with the guests. Sometimes we also need help with basic maintenance (painting & decorating etc.). Other than that a big part of the placement is to look after the guests and be sociable with them (invite them to play cards if you're playing, or out to the pub if you're going out). We want guests (and of course helpers) to find our hostel a friendly place and to have a great experience in Waterford and having friendly helpers is a really important part of that. Otherwise we do expect volunteers to look after areas when they're in them (so if there are dirty dishes in the kitchen or a bin needs to be emptied we expect volunteers to look after those issues). This part of the job probably only takes 5 minutes a day but is really critical as we need all areas to be nice and clean and looking well for the guests.
We also require all volunteers to speak English (you don't need perfect English but we don't like guests feeling excluded from conversations so require helpers to attempt to speak English).

In return, you will get a bed and basic breakfast (toast, cereal etc) every day, - we provide ingredients for dinner every day (as long as someone wants to cook) and have communal meals with staff and guests, with the cooking being rotated among the helpers - there's no hassle if you can't cook but we would like if you could help in some way (cleaning / chopping veg etc). Beds are in a shared room with other staff.

Otherwise, we will do whatever we can to make your trip to Waterford as enjoyable as possible. Since the dynamic of the hostel & guesthouse changes all the time (we started the project 2 and a half years ago but it's changed a lot over that period), it's hard to know exactly how things will be, but we think this will be an enjoyable opportunity for someone looking to see the South East of Ireland and help with what we hope will be a fun, sociable place to work at an exciting time. You'll definitely learn something - apart from improving your English volunteers have fun and hang out together and tend to learn lots from each other - how to cook weird dishes from each others countries, how to play guitar, how to draw, paint, etc etc etc.

If you would like to apply, please let us know when you think you would like to come, and also if you have any specific skills that might be useful - we're keeping an open mind.

We generally ask for a month from volunteers.
The help is 4 hours a day, 5 days per week (some weeks we may need you to work an extra day but you'll get the extra day off the next week if that happens - at the end of the month everyone has their first and last days free as well as eight others).
We can only take people with EU passports or valid work visas for Ireland (if you're from an non-Eu country can you confirm if you have one of these).

We prefer people travelling solo as we've found they soicalise with the guests more - we do occasionally take pairs of friends but not couples I'm afraid.

Thanks!