NCVS Volunteering Development Officer, Dave Thomas has had a busy Volunteers' Week and has sent this detailed report:
Last week’s Volunteers Week was, again, a very busy and very positive week for us at NCVS. We hosted an online Leaders of Volunteers Network, the first face-to-face training in about five years, and I went to talk to students at a volunteering event where I was invited by the University of Nottingham Students’ Union Communities Team to be part of a panel.
Leaders of Volunteers Network (LoVN): Small group, big ideas
The recent Leaders of Volunteers Network was a smaller gathering than I’d hoped for, but perhaps this was understandable in a week when many leaders of volunteers are holding events to celebrate their own volunteering teams. We still had some very interesting and useful discussions and information sharing.
Our focus for this meeting was volunteer recognition. It was great to hear how organisations are constantly thanking and appreciating their volunteers and how volunteer appreciation isn’t something kept only for Volunteers Week, but that volunteers are celebrated throughout the year and that many organisations have excellent buy-in from senior managers and other staff.
Recruitment real talk: Fresh thinking, 80s bangers and biscuits
A very different picture came from Thursday’s Volunteer Recruitment Workshop. There were a number of smaller organisations, as well as leaders of volunteers who would like much more engagement and support from staff colleagues. We discussed a few ways to try to develop a more organisation-wide appreciation of volunteers and of Leaders of Volunteers. I think I feel a blog about this coming on.
Our icebreaker was to ask each person to introduce themselves and to tell us which 80s song is a favourite. This was easy for me, but more of a challenge for the 90s and 00s babies in the group. However, we had an excellent set of songs that would make a great playlist for a volunteer party.
The session itself started with a look at the national and local volunteering statistics which bear out the experience of organisations who have noticed that fewer people are coming forward to volunteer. We also explored that volunteers’ motivations and their wants list for volunteering have changed and that organisations need to offer more flexible, short-term opportunities because there is much less interest from potential volunteers in the traditional, open-ended roles that are the traditional, pre-COVID opportunities.
We then addressed some of the challenges faced by the organisations in the session. This threw up a number of interesting issues which smaller groups then addressed in breakout sessions. After some discussion, their comments reflected some serious creative thought about addressing the challenges that they picked.
After the break (with biscuits!), we then drew upon some research that has been carried out here in the UK and abroad to discuss how we can engage with potential volunteers’ changed communication preferences and changed motivation.
I introduced 10 possibilities that organisations might adopt, then challenged the workshop participants to develop a campaign outline in just a few minutes. Once again, they all rose to the challenge and gave us some thought-provoking feedback.
One of the luxuries of a three-hour workshop was that we also had time to explore some tools to help with creativity before asking them to take their campaign plans away and develop them. I am hoping to hear about several innovative campaigns in the near future.
Back to Uni: Inspiring the next gen of volunteer leaders
On Friday, I was invited back to my old university to talk to some of the current generation of students as part of a day of training for new committee members of student clubs and societies. I was able to talk about my own experience of volunteering on and off campus during my student years.
I think I may have surprised a few students when I told them that not only were they volunteers, but as committee members, they were also leaders of volunteers.
It was great to be on the panel with IntoUniversity as well as members of the Students’ Union Communities Team. The students asked some really insightful questions that were something of a challenge to answer fully in the time available. The questions covered a range of topics, from how to set up a volunteer programme to how to develop partnerships with volunteer-involving organisations in the community.
While we at NCVS are very happy to support students and student-led groups with volunteering, it is also very reassuring to me that they also have great expertise and experience on hand in the form of the Students’ Union Communities Team.
More chats, more cheers: Supporting volunteer leaders one call at a time
Volunteers Week also saw me have conversations on video calls and over the phone with more than 10 Leaders of Volunteers during the week. We covered topics from how to use the NCVS website to promote opportunities to some support to resolve conflict within one volunteer team.
A BIG thank you to our brilliant contributors
I am very grateful to the five Leaders of Volunteers who have provided articles for this volunteering takeover on the e-bulletin. I am also humbled by the positive comments about NCVS and about my own contribution. Thank you all very much indeed. You can read these case studies, and our special Volunteers' Week takeover e-bulletin here.
If I didn’t ask you for an article and you feel left out, please let me have one. We’ll find a way to include it in a future e-bulletin.
However, I haven’t retired yet! I’m still around and more than willing to offer the help and support that the guest articles highlight so well. Get in touch, send me an email at davet@nottinghamcvs.couk.
