Volunteering round-up: February 2016

Posted on February 17, 2016 by Emily Graham
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Skilling up volunteer managers

What is the essential skill for volunteer managers?

Influencing. As long as volunteering is seen as good but not essential, volunteer managers will need to influence to ensure that volunteering is included in strategic planning and receives adequate resourcing. Get influencing now:

Light speed

What skills does a volunteer manager need to pull together a volunteer-led event at short-notice? Jarina shares the lessons learnt when Team Bowie came together to remember David Bowie with a dazzling volunteer effort.

Recruitment and retention

We rounded-up our good practice resources on recruitment and retention, in support of the Big Lottery Fund’s Big Volunteer campaign. I also looked back at my own volunteering experience and shared the reasons why I got involved in the first place.

If you want to take advantage of social media tools and techniques to recruit and retain volunteers, come along to our practical and interactive training on 11 March in London. You can take a look at our other training opportunities for volunteer managers on our website.

Celebrating volunteering

Volunteers’ Week: the Big Celebration, 1-12 June 2016

We believe that volunteers’ big contribution deserves a big celebration, which is why we will be extending the Volunteers’ Week celebrations this year and will be running the event from the 1-12 June. To learn more about Volunteers’ Week plans, take a look at our press release and read Kristen Stephenson’s blog post online.

Do you know Britain’s best volunteer?

Nominate someone you know to be recognised as Britain’s Best Volunteer by the Small Charities Coalition and Markel UK, but be quick as nominations close on 19 February.

Student Volunteering Week, 22-28 February 2016

We are getting ready to celebrate Student Volunteering Week. To get in the spirit, take a look at our guest blog post on how student volunteering is leading the way. Let us know how you are celebrating the week by leaving a comment below or tweeting us at @NCVOvolunteers.

New adventures in social action?

After we responded at the time to oppose a proposal to make NCS compulsory,  Justin Davis Smith now provides a fuller rebuttal about why “lazy calls” to make NCS mandatory would lead to dead ends and missed opportunities.

If you are interested in making the most of opportunities through innovation and creativity, we invite you to our social action workshop at NCVO’s Annual Conference on the future of voluntary action, 18 April in London.

Employer supported volunteering: making the next leap forward

There is a buzz about employer supported volunteering (ESV) at the moment, but if you feel like you have seen it all before, you are not alone. On the blog, Justin Davis Smith reflects on why he feels there is cause for optimism this time around.

We can really see the benefits of ESV, including for businesses’ employee engagement, as Patricia Kiss points out on the blog. For companies interested in ESV, we are offering introductory training to get you started.

Professional liability insurance for accountants

The professional body for accountants, ICAEW, has announced new professional liability insurance for UK volunteering activities. All members of ICAEW’s Charity and Voluntary Sector Group will have Professional Liability Insurance for their UK volunteering activities included as part of their membership fee.

We hope that this will enable more skilled volunteers to get involved. It is also good to see professional bodies removing potential barriers and supporting volunteering.

New generation of high-flying mentors

A new development has been announced by David Cameron in mentoring for young people which includes a major campaign to encourage business people and professionals to volunteer. We provide support and training for mentoring schemes with the Approved Provider Standard (APS). Learn more at an APS support workshop – the next workshop will be held in Manchester on 23 February.

Learning and sharing

Volunteering in Care Homes

As our Volunteering in Care Homes project comes to an end, we will be launching the final evaluation report and the Volunteering in Care Homes Good Practice Toolkit at a series of free Learn and Share events in March. Take a look at the project update for the latest news.

BIG Assist

Book your free place at the BIG Assist national conference on 25 February to share and learn new ideas and ways voluntary sector infrastructure are working to strengthen the voluntary sector and build social action.

Congratulations to all our achievers

As we congratulate all the organisations that have achieved quality standards this month, John Carlin reflects on the human face of quality standards.

IiV Achievers

Last month, 17 organisations in England successfully renewed or achieved the Investing in Volunteers quality standard. Congratulations to all IiV Achievers!

VCQA Achievers

A big congratulations to all organisations who recently achieved VCQA:

 

The corporates are coming: five ways to make employer supported volunteering (ESV) work for your organisation

Want to know more about Employee Supported Volunteering (ESV)? Come to our Annual Conference workshop on 18 April 2016.

Find out more about NCVO Annual Conference 2016

 

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Emily was NCVO’s trainee volunteering development policy officer. She is interested in policy around volunteering, particularly diversity in volunteering, employability, volunteering in public services, and employer supported volunteering.
All blog posts by Emily Graham

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