www.volunteercentres.org.uk

Show your support for good practice in volunteer management

Fin — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 16:13:58 +0000

We now have over 80 groups in Southwark signed up to the London Volunteer management Charter. Signing up to the charter is:

A great way to show funders that you are committed to supporting your volunteers
A great way to show volunteer that you value them
A chance to evaluate your volunteer programme, see what you have in place and what you would like to develop.

The charter is free to sign up to and you can receive a volunteer management health check from our good practice coordinator.

Find out more about the charter here: http://www.expertsinvolunteering.org.uk/web/charter

If you would like to sign up to the charter please e-mail truly@volunteercentres.org.uk

Become an Olympic Sports Maker – introductory workshops coming up in Southwark!

Fin — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 10:40:54 +0000

Sport Makers is a new national programme to make it easy for you to help make sport happen near you. Join the movement!

This year anyone can be a sporting hero!

Sport Makers are, quite simply, people who make sport happen.

Whether it’s planning the route, finding the pitch or encouraging people to take part – sport doesn’t just happen, it needs people to make it happen. Become one of 40,000 Sport Makers and you’ll not only get the skills, knowledge and opportunities you need to get more people playing sport, you’ll become part of the official London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic sports legacy.

To take the first step to become a sporting hero, visit www.sportmakers.co.uk and sign up to one of their forthcoming events:

Wednesday 22nd February, 6pm London South Bank University, 100-103 London Road Elephant and Castle SE1 6LN

Thursday 29th March, 6pm Canada Water Library Surrey Quays Road SE16 7AR

What are Sport Makers?

Some might organise sport informally for themselves and their friends, colleagues or neighbors, for example by:

Organising a friendly tennis session to help work colleagues get to know each other
Rounding up half a dozen mates for a regular five-a-side football kickabout
Encouraging five friends to do a local run in the park once a week, celebrating with breakfast afterwards and keeping them motivated.

Others won’t take part themselves, but will do all those things that make sport possible, such as:

Organising a fundraising fun-run for their village with the help of other Sport Makers
Creating a multi-sport event or festival for the local community with other people
Welcoming new participants at a local hockey club, helping them play the game and encouraging them to keep coming back.

Becoming a Sport Maker will give you the knowledge, information and connections to get better at making sport happen.

You will be one of 40,000 like-minded people who are making a difference to the lives of their friends, colleagues or local community.

You will be helping to deliver the official London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games sporting legacy, Places People Play, by helping more people play more sport.

And you will be having a good time doing it! Find out more at the Sports Makers website…

Next Volunteer Management Forum

Fin — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 10:19:22 +0000

Would you like an opportunity to meet with other volunteer managers in Southwark? Come along to our next Volunteer management Forum! A great place to network, share news and information and discuss issues about volunteering. Our next forum will take place on:

Thursday 1^st March from 10am – 1pm at

Inspire, The Crypt at St Peters, Liverpool Grove, SE17 2HH

The topics we will be looking at are:

1) Involving service users as volunteers: Hear from local groups about how they involve service users as volunteers and what works best and discuss issues around involving service users as volunteers.

2) Evaluating your volunteer programme: As we approach the end of the financial year we will be sharing and exploring ways of evaluating the impact of your volunteer programme.

There will also be space for announcements and updates about volunteering News in Southwark.

Please see the attached agenda with more details of the forum. The forum is free for groups based in Southwark and £25 for groups outside of Southwark.

If you would like to attend could you please return the booking form no later than Friday 17^th February. Download: VMF Booking Form and Agenda March 2012

Be a Sport Maker!

Fin — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 10:08:16 +0000

Sport Makers is an Olympic-inspired programme to encourage people to make sport happen with adults (over 16) in local communities. Sport Makers will provide support to help those wanting to support community sport, in whatever way they want to do this. If you want to find a sports volunteering opportunity or have information and support to set up your own community sports project, sign up with Sports Makers to make it happen!

Step1: Create a profile on www.sportmakers.co.uk

Step 2: Attend a workshop near you to find out more! The next open workshops will be:

Wednesday 22nd February from 6pm at LSBU, London Road, Elephant and Castle, SE1 6LN

Thursday 29th March 6pm at Canada Water library, Surrey Quays Road, SE16 7AR

Step 3: Find a sports volunteering opportunity through Volunteer Centre Southwark and Sport Makers

Step 4: log your volunteering hours on your Sport Makers profile in order to have the chance to win Olympic Tickets!*

In addition to this the programme will reward a number of participants each month in central London by providing sports vouchers and money off training.

*By taking part in Sport Makers, and completing your 10 hours, you could secure tickets to the greatest show on earth: Sport Makers and London 2012 are working together to give people the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to attend next year’s Olympic and Paralympic Games. The London 2012 Ticketshare scheme is funded by the London 2012 Prestige Ticketing programme. For more information please go to: www.sportmakers.co.uk“

Visit Sport Makers to find out more: www.sportmakers.co.uk

Download this Flyer ”SportMakers Open events‘ to find out more information about the open workshops

Recruitment: Involve Skills Officer

Jo — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 11:54:08 +0000

Involve Skills Officer (employer supported volunteering): 3 days pw, £23,848 (full time equivalent), Based Elephant and Castle. Deadline 10am 20^th January

Involve is an exciting and well established Employer-Supported Volunteering programme within the Volunteer Centre Southwark, helping people from the business sector get involved in the community. We are looking for a creative person with great people skills to join our team to help develop skills based opportunities and the running of one-day skills based volunteer projects which make a real difference to the community.

Skills based volunteering is designed to engage the intellectual capacity of a volunteer and to enable them to share these skills with other people. This style of volunteering can help stabilise a community group and empower them to develop new services; while individual participants are more able to realise their full potential within society.

Skills opportunities will form a new part of our work, complementing the practical ‘team challenges’ we already offer. Although we have already done a lot of ground work to develop opportunities and test out demand around skills opportunities we need someone to help take this work forward, embed it, run sessions and develop new strands to the work. These sessions could include one day workshops running mock interviews for local unemployed people, taking a group of mobility impaired people bowling or helping voluntary groups improve their marketing.

You will also be responsible for the promotion of these opportunities to businesses through e-bulletins and will work alongside the Involve manager to attract new business clients and to seek out and develop new volunteering opportunities.

You will be a creative and self motivated person who enjoys working with a broad range of community groups, members of the public and business employees. You will be working on projects that require hands-on involvement and leadership of volunteers and will not be phased by running a one day event where you are managing a group of people you haven’t met before.

You are a self-motivated team player that is flexible, with a natural ability to deal with customers and other stakeholders for the effective and smooth functioning of the programme. You will enjoy coming up with new ideas for projects with the skills to be able to take this development further and make it work.

This role would suit anyone who is looking to do something different, looking to get into volunteer management or employer supported volunteering, or someone who enjoys developing creative community projects.

Full Job Description and Application Pack at Charity Jobs

http://www.charityjob.co.uk/jobs/225192/skills-officer-employer-supported-volunteering

The Mayor of London’s Volunteer Award Recognition Event

Fin — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 14:21:45 +0000

The First Annual Team London Achievement Awards will celebrate the positive effect volunteering can have in our communities, with the aim of recognising those that have demonstrated a particular enthusiasm and commitment to volunteering in the capital.

This is a great opportunity to celebrate volunteers! Individual volunteers, teams of volunteers or volunteering organisations can all be nominated, although applicants must be based in London and efforts or contributions must benefit London or Londoners.

The Team London Achievement Awards will be managed in partnership with Greater London Volunteering (GLV) and the deadline for all nominations is the 1st February 2012. Winners will be announced at a prestigious awards ceremony on the 1st March 2012.

To make a nomination please complete the relevant form.

Nomination form – Organisations

Nomination form – Individual Volunteers or Teams of Volunteers

Completed forms should be returned to:

Eithne Rynne,

Greater London Volunteering, The Blackfriars Foundry, 156 Blackfriars Road, London, SE1 8ENE

mail: info@glv.org.uk

Helping your school to involve volunteers

Fin — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 11:52:21 +0000

Have you ever thought you could do with more support at your school? From things like gardening and volunteer readers to volunteers to help with events and support sports and games activities thousands of people in Southwark each year volunteer to make a difference.

As we enter 2012 there has been a huge surge in interest for volunteering as individuals are inspired to help and be a part of the Olympic Spirit. If you would like to involve volunteers in your school but don’t know where to start Volunteer Centre Southwark can help you to think about volunteer roles, write up roles that work for you, plan for volunteers and recruit. We also have a wealth of information, factsheets and resources that are all free for you to access and we would be happy to come and meet with you at your school.

Contact goodpractice@volunteercentres.org.uk for more information!

We are also able to provide teams of 10 – 20 volunteers to help with practical activities for a day when you need many hands! Our Involve team have helped hundreds of people from local business make a difference in Southwark. From revamping murals, to building sheds and landscaping gardens involve will support with planning and facilitating the day and the business will provide the resources so it is free for your school!

Visit the Involve webpage for more information

Or contact Joseph@volunteercentres.org.uk

That’s it til 2012!

Fin — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 10:43:38 +0000

Our drop in service will be closed now until Wednesday 4th January when we will be open again as usual from 10am – 4pm and normal drop-in hours from thereafter.

We have had a great response to Christmas volunteering this year and so unfortunately most volunteering opportunities over the holidays are now full.

The People’s Care Association who run that fantastic Christmas Day party for older people in Southwark at Bacon’s College in Rotherhithe, SE16 are still happy to hear from people who want to volunteer with them on Christmas Day. If you are interested then email Les at lha@looksouth.net.

That’s it from us for another year! From everyone here at Volunteer Centre Southwark may we wish you a very merry Christmas and all the best for 2012!

2 Spaces available in Action Learning Set!

Fin — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 15:53:14 +0000

In October this year we started a new Action learning Set for Volunteer managers in Southwark. Action
Learning is great model for finding practical solutions to problems in a supportive environment.

Due to some changes in the group we now have two spaces available in the Action Learning set.

The Set is a group of 4 – 5 individuals who manage or work with volunteers. We meet every 5 – 6 weeks and in each set each participant presents a problem they have with their volunteer programme, discuss it with the group and come up with some practical actions that they can try.

We have three meetings left in this set in which you can gain the benefit of sharing your problems, finding solutions and hearing from people working in similar fields, but there would also be scope to carry on the Set or start a new one in May.

If you or anyone you know would be interested in joining the set please contact truly on 020 7358 5957 truly@volunteercentres.org.uk.

Give your time this Christmas!

Fin — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 10:48:36 +0000

Guests at one of Crisis' shelters enjoy a hearty Christmas meal

At this time of year it is all too easy to be preoccupied with preparations, presents and parties. But there are many other ways you can give this festive season – and you’ll be amazed what you receive in return.

Whether you want to end 2011 on a high; help those less fortunate this Christmas; or get started early on that New Year’s resolution there is an opportunity for you to do so.

Here are some great opportunities for you to make a difference this Christmas. Get that festive feel good factor and get out there!

Christmas Volunteers @ Crisis – help London’s homeless have a warm and safe Christmas in one of Crisis’ temporary shelters

Christmas Day Celebration Volunteers @ People Care Association – give Southwark’s isolated older people a cracking Christmas day party

Carol Singing Fundraisers @ Atd Fourth World - bring Christmas song to Trafalgar Square and funds for the poor in London

Sleepout Fundraisers @ Southbank Cathedral – spend a night under the stars raising money for local homeless shelter

Read all about these festive opportunities to make a difference and make this Christmas one to remember!