The Voice of Volunteering, Issue no 4, May 2008

The Centre's National Volunteer Week activities

Australia's 5.2 million volunteers are being celebrated during National Volunteer Week (NVW). The Centre for Volunteering is conducting the following NVW events:

• Launch of the 2008 NSW Volunteer of the Year Awards
  Monday, 12 May 2008, Government House (invitation only)
    
• Employee Volunteer Program Research Report & Toolkit Release
  Monday, 12 May 2008, Westpac (invitation only)
    
• NFP Networking Event: The Ins & Outs of Corporate Volunteering
  Tuesday, 13 May 2008, 8.30am–10.30am
  Sydney Mechanics' School of Arts, 280 Pitt St, Sydney
  Find out more and RSVP to attend
     
• Introduction to Volunteering Spectacular (FULL)
  Thursday, 15 May 2008, 10.30am–12.30pm
  Parliament House, Macquarie Street, Sydney
   

Find out what else is happening in NSW during National Volunteer Week.

Fido continues to help members recruit skilled volunteers

Did you know that the Sydney Morning Herald provides space free of charge for The Centre for Volunteering and our members to advertise vacant volunteering positions on Mondays and Saturdays? 

The Fido Help Desk column can be found on Saturdays on the inside back page of the Herald's News Review section and on Mondays on the inside back page of the main news section. In providing the material each week for the column, The Centre gives priority to positions requiring skills, qualifications or experience etc. In addition, details of these positions are posted weekly on the Fido website and are emailed to around 1,100 people registered on the website to receive the weekly jobs e-bulletin. Read more

Dollar value of volunteer time
Pro Bono Australia

As we are about to celebrate Volunteer Week in Australia (12–18 May), The Independent Sector in the US has released its annual assessment of the value of the Volunteer hour. The dollar value has reached $AUD20.83 in 2007 showing an upward trend from 2006 of about 3%.

The Independent Sector agrees that it is very difficult to put a dollar value on volunteer time. It says volunteers provide many intangibles that can not be easily quantified. For example, volunteers demonstrate the amount of support an organisation has within a community, provide work for short periods of time, and provide support on a wide range of projects. Read more

Radio National's Life Matters

ABC are running another series on Radio National's Life Matters, which started on Monday, 28 April, for an eight week season. The first topic is going to be "voluntourism". The other topics include:

• The role of governments in supporting volunteering
• Volunteering and the internet and Generation Y
• CALD volunteers
• Social enterprises
• Volunteering for the Beijing Olympics.

Visit ABC's Life Matters to listen to past topics.

Corporate angels in goodcompany at Australian Stock Exchange
goodcompany and Minister for Volunteering, the Hon Linda Burney MP

In the lead up to National Volunteer Week, six leading corporate executives joined goodcompany and the Minister for Volunteering Linda Burney to support skilled volunteering initiatives within the corporate workplace.

Joining goodcompany General Manager Belinda Morrissey and Minister Burney at the Australian Stock Exchange were Vodafone Australia CEO Russell Hewitt, Macquarie Group Chief Information Officer Nigel Smyth, Yahoo 7 CEO Rohan Lund, Fox Interactive CEO Rebekah Horne, FOXTEL's Patrick Delany and Network Ten's Head of Digital Damian Smith.

Goodcompany's Belinda Morrissey said that many companies are looking for productive ways to give back to the community. Why not leverage their most valuable commodity – their staff? Read more

Nominate your volunteers

The 2008 NSW Volunteer of the Year Award is being launched at Government House on Monday, 12 May 2008 by NSW Minister for Volunteering and Patron of the Awards, Linda Burney. Ian Kiernan, Chairman of Clean Up Australia, will be MC of the event.

The Award is open to anyone who volunteers three hours a week or more to any NSW community based not-for-profit organisation. Read more and nominate today

Cumberland Newspapers support for volunteers

Cumberland Newspapers has become official Media Partner for the 2008 NSW Volunteer of the Year Award.

Cumberland Newspapers is the publisher of 19 leading community newspapers with readership of more than 1.8 million – including 9-5, City Weekly, North Shore Times, Parramatta Advertiser, The Glebe, The Manly Daily and Wentworth Courier to name a few.

Berry Alliance Volunteer of the Year Awards

Minister for Volunteering Linda Burney presented the inaugural Berry Alliance Volunteer of the Year Awards in the south coast town on 2 May. The Berry community is proud of its strong volunteering ethos and the Berry Alliance, a volunteer-run community consultative group, initiated the awards to provide recognition for the town's hard-working community members.

Pictured left to right: Minister Burney, Life Volunteer Award recipient John McLeod, Life Volunteer Award recipient Marjorie McGee (a volunteer for more than 70 years), local Member and Minister for Housing Matt Brown and 2008 Berry Volunteer of the Year Marilyn Kellett.

KPMG adviceBank Award

The KPMG adviceBank Award is for any business person who has voluntarily assisted an arts organisation with a project – anything from business planning to marketing, legal advice and much more. It's free to enter and an award is presented in every state, with the winner going on to the national finals. It doesn't have to be a volunteer relationship that AbaF brokered – we welcome nominations from anyone who has made the commitment to use their skills to assist an arts or cultural organisation. Nominations close Friday, 16 May 2008. Find out more about the AbaF Awards.

Not-for-profit Networking Event: The Ins and Outs of Corporate Volunteering
Tuesday, 13 May 2008, 8.30am–10.30am
Sydney Mechanics' School of Arts, 280 Pitt St, Sydney

Volunteer managers and not-for-profit representatives are invited to The Centre's Corporate Volunteering Networking Event. Review The Centre's new toolkit for not-for-profits engaging in corporate volunteering and learn about the ins and outs of this fast growing volunteering opportunity.

RSVP today
All volunteer managers are very welcome to these events. Numbers are limited and booking is essential. Email Janine Cowen ASAP to RSVP. There is a cost of $10 to attend and breakfast will be provided.

SCIP/Youth Report
Maia Giordano, Youth Volunteer Program Manager

In late March Maia Giordano ran a volunteer workshop with students from WAYS Youth Service. Maia continues to work with WAYS staff to link young people with volunteer opportunities.

Maia ran a Student Community Involvement Day at Oxford Falls Grammar to launch the student volunteer program for Year 10 students. Engaging and informative presentations were given by speakers from Amnesty International, House With No Steps, St Vincent de Pauls and Vision Australia.

The Centre's April Networking Event was on Youth Volunteering. It was attended by community organisations, schools and government. Sincere thanks to guest speakers Kate Dixon from the Red Cross Youth Challenge Program and Ben Hanckel who spoke about his broad range of volunteer experiences. Ben currently volunteers in a variety of roles with the Inspire Foundation on the website www.ActNow.com.au. Thanks also to Volunteering SA who kindly sent copies of their handbook Doing It! Making Volunteering Youth Friendly for all attendees.

Maia also conducted a workshop on volunteering at The Horn of Africa Relief and Development Association (HARDA) Youth camp. The camp was based on themes of social coherence, harmony and security and was attended by 37 teenage boys, aged between 14 and 17 years, from the Horn of Africa Countries.  Following on from this workshop Maia will be working with HARDA to offer volunteer experiences to these young people.

If you would like to involve young people as volunteers in your organisation, please phone 02 9261 3600 or email info@volunteering.com.au.

© The Centre for Volunteering 2007 | ABN 28 002 416 024
Level 2, 228 Pitt St, Sydney NSW 2000
T: 02 9261 3600 | F: 02 9261 4033 | E: info@volunteering.com.au | W: www.volunteering.com.au
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