Volunteer Referral Service volunteers rule
By John Forrest
The numbers say it all! The Centre for Volunteering operates with just 10 paid staff and approximately 100 volunteers working every week.
In The Centre's Volunteer Referral Service (VRS), the volunteer contribution is even more noticeable with two paid staff (one full-time and one part-timer) working with more than 35 volunteers each week*. These volunteers work between four and sixteen hours every week. They handle 5,000 enquiries each year from would-be volunteers and interview and match some 3,000 of them with not-for-profit volunteer roles!
Each week approximately 33 volunteers manage phone and face-to-face interviews and are supported by Front Desk Receptionists, Referral Coordinators, Data Entry Operators, Database Management Team, Public Speakers, and Policy, Research, Communications and Administration volunteers.
With around 26 women in VRS, the seven mere males are well and truly outnumbered!
I use "approximately" when describing volunteer numbers because the nice thing about volunteering is that you don't have to do it all the time! Our VRS volunteer numbers go up and down as volunteers have short breaks, get paid work, move away from Sydney or go "grey-nomading".
At the same time we happily welcome new volunteers to join with the "old hands" who just keep on keeping on. While we don't keep individual tallies, some six or seven old hands have probably done well over 1,000 interviews and another six or seven would have exceeded 800 interviews, since their time in the VRS.
Our old-hand-heroine is "Billie" who joined the fledgling organisation way back in 1981. Billie still drops in from time to time to check us out and stay in touch. Mary has been here at The Centre since 1982, seeing many changes in our operations and volunteering such as the diversity of people wanting to volunteer has also grown.
On the other hand, we have six team members who joined us this year, including Andrea who has only been with us for six weeks. And Alex and Ying moved on to full-time employment, enjoying their time at the VRS whilst gaining insight into the Australian workforce.
So there you have it. Volunteer Referral Service Volunteers Rule and they love it!
* a rough count of the Referral Service Volunteer Roster, August 2008
More information
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The Centre
for Volunteering [ABN 28 002 416 024]
Level 2, 228 Pitt Street, Sydney NSW 2000
T: 02 9261 3600 | F: 02 9261 4033 | E: info@volunteering.com.au
www.volunteering.com.au