Monica Schneider, previously Volunteer & Training Coordinator, Holdsworth Street Community Centre, Woollahra
What does your job entail?
At Holdsworth Street Community Centre, we provide programs and services to a broad range of the community including aged, disability, families and carers.
As a volunteer coordinator, I recruit, support, train, manage and retain a great team of volunteers across these programs. The tasks involved to achieve this offer a lot of variety and include everything from supporting a volunteer on an individual level to reporting monthly on our volunteer involvement, and from advertising and promotion, to providing training.
Our volunteers are invaluable, as with over 70 volunteers they make up more than half our staff. It is important that we have a structure in place so that the entire centre effectively supports and recognises our volunteers.
In my role, I also coordinate three aged care programs which are led by volunteers: a seniors' movie matinee, seniors' discovery tour and home visiting. It is extremely rewarding to be able to see the direct positive impact our centre and volunteers have on our community members.
Why and how did you become a volunteer manager?
After my first experience of volunteering at the Royal Blind Society, I found how much I loved the values of working in a not-for-profit organisation and decided I wanted to develop a career in the community sector. Following on from this, I became involved with The Centre for Volunteering and worked there – both as an educational administrator and a Future Visions 4x5 project assistant. When Future Visions ended, I decided I would enjoy a more hands-on role in the community sector and became the volunteer and training coordinator at Holdsworth Street Community Centre.Please share some of the rewarding experiences you have had working with volunteers?
I have had some extremely rewarding experiences working with volunteers where I have seen their confidence and belief in their abilities grow as they gain and practise skills and see the difference that they make to people in our community.As a manager, when you hear your volunteers say how much they love and look forward to volunteering each week, it is incredibly rewarding. You know you have made a positive difference to others' lives by placing a volunteer in the right position.
Do you have any examples of innovative programs and ideas for working with your volunteers?
I love doing volunteer profiles for our newsletter as it achieves so many things. It recognises the achievements and contribution of volunteers. It's great feedback for me to hear what a difference volunteering has made to them and also shows other people who read the newsletter how rewarding volunteering can be.There are many ways to acknowledge volunteers, but I find one of the most powerful ways is a heartfelt 'thank you'.
Do you network with other volunteer managers? If yes, how and what have you gained from that?
I have been working together with Woollahra Council to initiate a volunteer forum for our area. This is a great opportunity for organisations involving volunteers to get together to share information and ideas on how to support volunteering in our organisations, as well as work on projects together – sharing our resources to achieve more together.Our first forum was held on the 20th of October 2006 and was a great success, with everyone keen to contribute and meet on a regular basis. This showed me just how much of a need there was for forums like this and I'm keen to get new ideas and see the outcomes of some of the projects.