Volunteering round-up: November 2017

Trustees’ Week

It’s Trustees’ Week, the annual event showcasing the contribution of volunteers who run charities! To celebrate, NCVO are offering discounts for members and non-members on a range of relevant training courses and publications. See what’s on offer but be quick as discounts end 18 November.

400 colleagues from the sector attended our annual Trustee Conference on 14 November to debate what good governance looks like for modern charities. I will give a fuller account in next month’s round-up, but follow what happened on Twitter with #trusteeconf.

Listen up! The new episode in our pilot podcast series is online and focuses on good governance. NCVO governance expert Dan Francis is joined by Sarah O’Grady, former chair of Amnesty International UK, and Baroness Pitkeathley, chair of the recent House of Lords select committee on charities.

House of Lords citizenship and civic engagement committee

Written submissions to the Lords committee on citizenship and civic engagement have been published, including NCVO’s submission.

Sir Stuart Etherington, chief executive of NCVO, is also due to give oral evidence to the committee this week (15 November), making the case for the impact charities and volunteering have on civic engagement. Catch up on all oral evidence sessions and other developments from the committee.

Watch and learn with free webinar

Join us for our free webinar: Trends in volunteering. NCVO’s Jarina Choudhury will share insights into how volunteering is changing, and how charities can adapt their volunteering offer accordingly.

International Volunteer Managers Day

If you were too busy having fun with sparklers on 5 November, you may have missed International Volunteer Managers Day. Andy Broomhead, Head of Volunteering at Diabetes UK, wrote a guest blog post to mark the day, writing on how volunteer managers can be the voice of charities.

Volunteers fill the holiday hunger gap

New research shows the importance of volunteers feeding children during school holidays.

Stephanie Denning, a researcher at the University of Bristol, joined-up with charity MakeLunch to understand how church groups and volunteers are responding to the pernicious growth of children going hungry during school holidays. See a summary of her findings and recommendations for charities and volunteer managers.

#iwill Week

Celebrate youth social action during #iwill week 2017, 20–24 November.

#iwill week is a great opportunity to reflect on the success of the #iwill campaign on its fourth birthday and look ahead at how young people, when engaged in their communities, can lead social cohesion and integration in difficult times. Follow the latest on twitter using #iwillWeek.

Congratulatory corner

Congratulations are due this month to a number of new Investing in Volunteers (IiV) achievers. This is always brilliant to see and will lead to better volunteering opportunities with better impact. The achievers are:

• Addaction
• Brighton Unemployed Centre Family Project
• Cornwall Air Ambulance Trust
• Groundwork London
• Healthwatch Wiltshire
• Home-Start Colchester
• Lee Valley Regional Park Authority
• London Tigers
• London Transport Museum
• Royal Mencap Society
• Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust Hospital Volunteer Services (HVS)
• The Oasis Partnership
• The Phoenix Stroke Club
• SCRATCH
• Shepherds Bush Housing Group
• Staffordshire Buddies
• The Care Forum
• Volunteer Centre Sutton
• Waltham Forest Community Hub
• The Young Lives Foundation

IiV is the UK sector quality standard for good practice in volunteer management.

Training and events

• Volunteering and the Law – 24 November. This course will enable you to understand volunteering in relation to issues such as safeguarding, data protection and health and safety.
  Good practice in volunteer management – 1 December. This course provides an introduction to the key principles of good practice in volunteer management and how to apply them to your organisation.
• Charity Leaders in the 2020s – starts 5 December. Come and join our third cohort of our inspiring leadership programme
• Data Protection Reform training. A course to help you navigate the new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) reforms.
  • 29 November, Exeter
  • 1 December, London
  • 12 January, London
  • 17 January, Newcastle
  • 2 February, London
  • 5 February, Leeds
• Assessing the impact of your volunteers – 8 February. This course will give you step-by-step guidance on how to use the Volunteer Impact Assessment Toolkit to assess the impact your volunteers are having on your organisation, your beneficiaries, and themselves.