I READ the Barnsley Chronicle for lots of reasons.

I like to keep up with what’s happening at Barnsley FC, particularly at this pre-season time of year when everything (or something, or nothing) is possible.

I like to read the latest performative decisions the council is making. I like to read the letters because I like opinions, both the ones I agree with and the ones I disagree with because hey, that’s democracy and it’s good to have a forum for your views.

I have to say though that my favourite bits of the paper are the stories of the people who are doing good in the communities they live in, trying their best to make Barnsley and indeed the world a better place.

I’m talking about you, if you’re a volunteer. Litter-pickers, sports coaches, theatre groups, folks who just turn up when needed, I mean you. Thanks very much. Volunteers are the oil that keeps the wheels of society turning, and without them our streets would turn from vivid technicolour to a sort of sepia, fading at the edges.

And that brings me neatly to our little corner of diversity, inclusion and equality, (what beautiful words they are!) Darfield Museum at the corner of Vicar Road.

Regular readers will know that I’ve written before in these pages about Darfield Museum: I’m proud to be a volunteer there, serving in the tearoom once a month in my Lucy and Yak pinny, being a member of the committee that helps to keep the doors open, and being a co-organiser of events like our brilliant open mic the other week.

Indeed, come along to the museum on August 1 which as we all know is Yorkshire Day: we’ll be reviving our Darfield tradition of Yorkshire pudding chucking, where we try to throw puddings into a flat cap. Come and have a go if you think you’re tyke enough.

Whatever you do, though, don’t come to the museum tomorrow, July 18, because we’re closed, and we’ll be shut until the aforementioned Yorkshire Day pudding-flinging.

We don’t want to shut for a fortnight but we have to because we haven’t got enough volunteers to look after the place, particularly the tearoom. We have quite a few people who are willing to turn up and work hard to keep our little cultural beacon shining but at times there’s nobody on the rota and that’s a sad thing.

Let me tell you what my experience of being a volunteer involves and see if you fancy it. Everybody does something different: this is just an account of my Volunteer Day. We open at 10am on a Saturday so because I’m a keyholder I get there about 9.05 to unlock, open all the rooms, switch the water heater on, prepare the floats in the cash boxes for the shop and the tea room and get my pinny on.

Other volunteers arrive for the shop and the tearoom and the guiding and the gardening and then we open the doors and people come in. I’m behind the counter in the tearoom and I greet the customers with a grin and a polished anecdote and I take their orders.

There are usually three of us in the teashop and between us we take orders and make tea and coffee and slice cake and put teacakes and crumpets and fruit loaf in the toaster (not at the same time, obvs) and then we take trays to tables and we wash up and carry on until closing time when we cash up and switch things off and lock the doors and go home.

And, like I said, everybody’s volunteer experience is different and bespoke to them. And it’s fun, and we have a laugh, and we meet some very interesting people and we know that we’re (and I’m not really that keen on this phrase but it’s the only one I can think of, and it seems to work) putting something back.

I know you’ve heard this kind of thing before: we need volunteers. We need volunteers and every good cause needs volunteers. We need folks who are willing to give up a little bit of precious time for a great cause.

It can be a couple of hours a month or half an hour a month: everyone’s welcome. Come and see us on Yorkshire Day or have a look at our website.

And I’ll see you there!