Volunteer Coordinators’ Network Update 61

Hi Everyone,

I’m off work ill at the moment (nothing too serious, but thanks for asking.) Due to a miracle of advance planning, most of this update was written at the beginning of the week when I was at work, so I am able to upload this from home. I’ll send out your email notification when I get back to work, but if you stumble across this in the meantime, that’s great.

From the feedback that I have had over the past couple of weeks, it looks like the blog format is here to stay. Thanks to everyone who has given me their views - and apologies to the two people who preferred the plain text email.

This week’s info starts with some feedback from the VCN meeting on Monday:

1. VCN Meeting Feedback - Monday 21st July
2. The Next VCN - Monday 18th August - 10am - 12
3. VCN Membership Update
4. Queen’s Award For Voluntary Service
5. Nottingham’s Proud of You Awards
6. 25th October - CSV Make a Difference Day
7. Bulwell Vision Bulletin - Out Now

1. VCN Meeting - 21st July
A small and very select group of us gathered on Monday afternoon, so we decided to abandon the planned Speed dating activity and to have a broad-ranging discussion in which we shared experiences of working with volunteers across several very different organisations. Many thanks for their involvement and contributions to Skylarks, Parent Partnership Project, Young Potential as well as our own Volunteer Centre Volunteer Coordinator and another couple of staff from the Volunteer Centre team. I found this discussion very interesting and I learned a lot about how different organisations work with their volunteers.

2. The Next VCN - Monday 18th August - 10am - 12
That’s pretty well it, except to say that the plan at the moment is that we’ll have a discussion under the working title: “Who Needs Volunteering Policies“. Please come along and bring your own policies along as examples. Also please bring any problems, issues or questions that you may have in this area.

However, it would be most unusual if we actually stick to the planned topic, so even if you have no interest in volunteering policies, come along anyway because there could well be cake on offer - for a reason that I won’t go into right now.

3. VCN Membership Update
I have been asked by a few people when their membership of the VCN is up for renewal. Lots of us used to renew every August.

At the start of this year, we decided to run VCN membership from January 1st to December 31st, so you won’t be asked to renew until the end of the year. 

If you come across an organisation who isn’t a member of the VCN, but who should be, we’re having a Summer Sale! A new group joining now will pay only £10 for the rest of the year.

4. Queen’s Award For Voluntary Service
On Tuesday, I went to a presentation about this award. Recipients of this award are a fairly exclusive club, but some of the organisations in Nottingham and Nottinghamshire who already have this award are also very good at looking after their volunteers.  You can see the list of past winners, the criteria (which basically says that you must involve two or more volunteers in what you are doing) and the application process on their website http://tinyurl.com/6ey24f

According to Literacy Volunteers, who won the award a couple of years ago, the award brings a great deal of prestige that certainly makes volunteer recruitment and retention easier and it can potentially impress funders, local government and other people and organisations.

The awards organisers would very much like to receive more nominations for Nottingham groups, but you will have to find someone outside the group to do this as you can’t nominate yourself. A job for your mum, maybe?

5. Nottingham’s Proud of You Awards
Yes, it’s a seriously cheesy title, but these local awards provide a chance for you to nominate your own volunteers for fifteen minutes of local fame.

The Award Categories are:

• Caring Award
• Danielle Beccan Young Achiever Award
• Good Neighbour Award
• Green Champion Award
• Inspiration Award
• Boots Local Hero Award
• Respect for Nottingham Award

 The closing date for nominations is 19 September 2008. Details from http://tinyurl.com/57mkwk

Thanks to our Marketing Officer, Gill Woodard for sending this to me.

6. 25th October - CSV Make a Difference Day
The Volunteer centre Network and Volunteering England go big on Volunteers Week each June, but the other big volunteering celebration is CSV Make a Difference Day. This year it falls on Saturday 25th October 2008, with activities taking place on the day or a week either side. Like Volunteers’ Week, it can be a great way to raise awareness of your volunteering activities and to find yourself new volunteers. You can sign up for special emails with resources, tips and volunteer advice at www.csvcampaigns.org.uk/volunteers

Let’s face it, we can all use good ideas for recruitment, retention and recognition.

7. Bulwell Vision Bulletin - Out Now
Michelle Cooke, the Neighbourhood Volunteering Worker in Bulwell has sent me a PDF of her newsletter that is packed with details of projects and activities being driven by volunteers in the Bulwell area. Even if you aren’t based there, it’s worth a look for some great ideas.

You can contact Michelle at michelle.cooke@bulwellvision.org, or get your copy by email from me. Please request your copy by using the Comment link below.

Ride Safe
Dave

Hoggin The Beaver V - Part 3

Follow these  links if you want to read Part 1 and Part 2 before coming back to the final part of this tale of our last Harley-Davidson Weekend.

After the naked truth about some of the great and good within the Hoggin the Beaver and Sherwood Chapter organisation, Saturday evening back on the campsite could have been a real anticlimax. However, the band that Pete had booked for this evening proved to be more than equal to the task of filling the dance floor and keeping the assembled throng entertained.

The Hound Dogs are a three piece rockabilly band. This statement does nothing to convey the supreme musicianship of these three lads, a guitarist who fingers turn into a blur across his semi-acoustic instrument as he finds time for fills, riffs and solos among the frantic pace set by a drummer who hardly ever sits down and an upright bass player who spins his bass around, lifts it above his head and never misses a beat.

The only down side to Saturday night at Hoggin the Beaver is the interminable raffle and auction that went on for over an hour between the band’s two sets. It’s a real shame that the music has to stop for so long, but let’s also remember that the weekend is fundamentally all about fundraising. I know that I am in a minority here, but my own approach to this long and dull hour is to stay out of the way. 

Maybe last year’s experience of having a pint of beer spilled over one of our speakers also influenced on my lack of interest in this, apart from a healthy determination to keep our equipment right out of the firing line.  Once we had achieved this, we stayed outside the building among the smokers, having some good conversations with a few other people who were .

It is a real credit to the Hound Dogs that they managed to rekindle the vibe once their second set got under way. Sue and I pushed and shoved our way back into the room to enjoy the music and the whole spectacle of the show. This culminated during their encore with the drummer setting fire to one of his cymbals and the guitarist standing on the bass drum.

If you get a chance to see the Hound Dogs, grab it, it will be a night to remember. They really are the ideal band for a small venue like the Rutland Arms at a gig packed with middle-aged bikers. From my point of view, they are also the kind of consummate professionals that any DJ is delighted to support.

After the band had finished, I was able to pick up on the great atmosphere, although I was disappointed that Sue was again unable to be with me on stage and that she went off to the tent and to bed.  Would you credit the fact that I even played some Northern Soul at a biker gig! Dobie Gray’s “Out On The Floor” went into Muriel Day’s “Nine Times Out Of Ten” and segued into the original version of “Tainted Love” by Gloria Jones. With lots of other Motown and sixties music as well, we all had a chance to re-live our youth club days.

Whenever I do a gig for the Sherwood Chapter lot, I always play the favourite record of one of our members, Carol Wright. From the reaction at this gig, it seems that a lot of other people also have a soft spot for “Everlasting Love” by Love Affair.  One of these days I must play Robert Knight’s version for Carol.

At about quarter past one on Sunday morning, I was asked by one of the bar staff what time we intended to finish, so, abandoning the usual end-of-evening love songs, I finished with Led Zep’s “Whole Lotta Love”.

I was almost glad to stagger off down the camping field and fall into bed.

Sunday morning dawned bright, sunny and dry. We were still in the land of nod when we heard the first V-Twin engine rumble into life and away from the rally at about 7:30am. We had already decided that we were in no hurry, so the day eventually started with a cup of tea and spaghetti on raw toast (OK, it was on bread.)  We eventually went up to the pub and borrowed the function room key and got stuck into  a leisurely de-rig of the equipment. After loading up the car, it was time to turn our attention to the tent and camping gear.

By this time, the last of the dew had long dispersed and we stacked the contents of the tent outside on the grass while we took the tent down and worked out how to pack it back into the bag.

I really don’t know why such a simple task always has to result in a few “words” between Sue and I, but it always does. She ought to know by now that I don’t need to be told how to fold a tent. In fact, I’m reckon that tent packing is one skill that all men acquire in their genes.

Once the camping gear had been stuffed into the car on top of the disco gear it was almost lunchtime and Sue had very sensibly booked us into the pub for our Sunday lunch. We had to wait for a few minutes, which I used to help with some of the clearing up before settling down to an excellent Sunday roast and all the trimmings. I was surprised that we were the only campers in the place, although enough people seem to travel to the Rutland Arms that the campers weren’t missed.

After lunch, we said our final goodbyes and set off for home where, after unloading the car, we crashed out to catch up on some much needed sleep.

Although we don’t know the dates for next year’s Hoggin the Beaver, it is possible that we won’t be able to go if it’s the same weekend in 2009. This has already been booked for my eldest son’s wedding.

Ride Safe
Dave

Volunteer Coordinators’ Network Update 60

Hi all,

We’ve got lots to cover in this update with 9 information items. Click on the title in the menu to go to the item:

1. An Apology
2. The Blog Format for This Update
3. VCN Meeting - Monday 21st July 2-4pm
4. Monitoring Volunteers - New Research Bulletin Issued
5. Volunteer Stories Wanted for Evening Post “Give A Little Time” Series
6. Online One-Stop Resource For Training
7. Volunteers’ Travel Costs
8. Are Your Volunteers Getting Grief From JobCentre Plus?
9. Are You Guilty Of Losing Volunteers At The First Hurdle?

1 An Apology

I’m starting this update with an apology to those network members who were offended by my ill-tempered rant in the last update about the cancellation of our recent training course.  In this, I said:

“I really don’t like the feeling of being a complete prat when I have to tell such high profile trainers that Nottingham doesn’t want to come to hear what they have to teach us.”

On re-reading this, it certainly appears that I was trying to making VCN members responsible for  not booking and so for the failure of this course. In fact, I have become convinced that my own massive workload on Volunteers Week, coupled with my holiday in the two weeks before the scheduled date meant that my promotion and marketing of the course left a lot to be desired.

As we now have a Marketing Officer in our team and I have also had offers of support from the Nottingham Community Network and others, our next training should have a much higher profile.

2. The Blog Format for This Update

I was surprised to get overwhelming positive feedback for the blog format that I tried for the first time with the last update. Although a couple of people preferred the text-only email format, most people who responded said that they like this way of providing the VCN Update.

So… to develop the experiment a little further this week, there will be no email version of the update, just the email that gave you the link to this post.  If you have any views about this, whether positive or negative, please let me know , either with a comment on the blog (using the link at the end of this post), or by emailing me at the usual Volunteer Centre Nottingham address.

3. VCN Meeting - Monday 21st July 2-4pm

This is a brief reminder that the next VCN meeting will be our “Speed Dating” special. I hope to see you on Monday - but it would help me if you let me know that you will be able to come. And thanks to everyone who has already been in touch.

4. Monitoring Volunteers - New Research Bulletin Issued

The Institute for Volunteering Research has issued a new Research Bulletin entitled ‘Monitoring Volunteers: A Guide To Collecting And Using Data’. It gives some useful guidance to volunteer coordinators and managers as well as to those of us in the Volunteer Centre.

Download your free PDF copy (168KB) from http://tinyurl.com/6kuvah 

5. Volunteer Stories Wanted for Evening Post “Give A Little Time” Series

Gill Woodard, the Marketing Offficer here at the Volunteer Centre Nottingham writes:

I am looking for some good stories about volunteering, on a range of topics, from individual success, breaking down barrier, long time service, new opportunities etc. Any possible story, please send my way, I will work with the individual(s) to get the story written, and (hopefully) published in the Evening Post.

All I need from you is Contact Name, No / email and a quick brief of the story.

Gill Woodard
Volunteering Marketing Officer

Telephone 0115 934 8541
email gillianw@nottinghamcvs.co.uk

6. Online One-Stop Resource For Training

• Are you struggling to find training and development opportunities available to you & your organisation?
• Or maybe you’re looking for a meeting room, community venue or equipment to hire?
• Do you work for a Voluntary Sector Group/Organisation?
• Are you a Volunteer?
• A Committee/Board Member or Trustee?
• Tired of trawling the Internet hoping that what you need is out there somewhere?
• Help is at hand!
• www.enable-vcs.org
• All your VCS training & development needs, venue hire & equipment on one handy, easy to use website
• Managed by the Voluntary & Community Sector for the Voluntary & Community Sector

In the unlikely event that you can’t find the training and development you’re looking for on the website call Enable on: 0115 934 8495 or email: lynn@enable.uk.netand if it’s out there, they’ll find it!

7. Volunteers’ Travel Costs

Volunteering England’s Information Service report that they are getting a lot of enquiries about mileage rates in the light of the recent escalation in fuel cost. They have been in discussion with HM Revenue and Customs, who have said that there are no plans to review the agreed tax-free rates at present. However, HMRC have indicated that you can use an alternative method for calculating costs in travel expenses claims.  At the moment, the guidance on this is not very clear, but HMRC has promised to work with Volunteering England to update and improve the guidance.

Volunteering England have issued a statement which you can see at http://tinyurl.com/6o8hrx.

Their updated information sheet on Travel Expenses is at http://tinyurl.com/6bh853

8. Are Your Volunteers Getting Grief From JobCentre Plus?

I have had some feedback recently that some unemployed volunteers and potential volunteers are being told by JobCentre Plus that they are not allowed to volunteer. I have even heard a report that an advisor has told a customer that there is an official list of approved charities where people on benefit are allowed to volunteer and that they are not allowed to volunteer in any other organisation!

If you, or your volunteers, come across any similar ruling from JobCentre plus staff, please let us know here at the Volunteer Centre. I have already written a letter that will be going to the Rt Hon Steven Timms MP, Minister of State for Employment and Welfare Reform as well as to our local MPs and JobCentre plus managers, but I am keen to monitor this situation in order that our volunteers and our own organisations are not adversely affected by what I believe to be wrong information being given by JobCentre advisors.

9. Are You Guilty Of Losing Volunteers At The First Hurdle?

For some time, we have been concerned that a number of volunteers who are brokered by the Volunteer Centre and through the www.do-it.org.uk site tell us that they simply do not hear from the organisations whose opportunities we have given them.  I am astonished that some organisations that need the skills and time that these volunteers are offering are failing to capitalise on their initial offer of help.

I know that the vast majority of volunteer coordinators and managers are as concerned about this as I am, but the anecdotal evidence seems to show that many volunteers are lost in this way. We have talked about this within the Volunteer Centre Development Team and we want to get at the truth by monitoring these complaints more effectively than we may have done in the past. Ultimately, this will help us to help you by offering support to organisations whose initial enquiry systems are failing in some way.

Can you be 100% certain that every potential volunteer gets a response from your organisation within 48 hours of their initial contact?
How quickly will you invite them in to meet you for an interview or informal chat?
How long after that will it be before they are inducted and trained?

If you would like some support about any area of recruiting, supporting and managing your volunteers, we now have three Volunteering Development Officers here at the Volunteer Centre Nottingham who would love to talk to you. 

Kate Buchanan: katebu@nottinghamcvs.co.uk,
Jenny Idle: jennyi@nottinghamcvs.co.uk
Me: davet@nottinghamcvs.co.uk

That’s it for now,
Ride Safe
Dave

Hoggin The Beaver V - Part 2

You can read part 1 of this post by scrolling down the page or by clicking on
 http://chuffinghog.wordpress.com/hoggin-the-beaver-v-part-1/

Saturday morning dawned overcast and the overnight rain had left the tent wet and the camping field pretty soggy. After a hearty breakfast, and Sue and I shared a mug of tea with Eric, also known to Sherwood Chapter members as Bananaman, it was time to get ready for the ride-out. 

There was some debate about weariing waterproofs as the dark, rain-laden clouds were scudding overhead. I decided to compromise and wear waterproof trousers, but to put my waterproof jacket in the saddlebag. As it turned out, waterproofs weren’t really needed as we only saw a few drops of rain all day, and nothing to worry a bunch of tough biker types.

The initial route was the one that has been established over the last three years of Hoggin the Beaver. We ride up to Belvoir Castle and assemble on a terrace behind the castle where we park the bikes and present the cheque for the funds raised during the previous year. This year we presented £3000 to the Air Ambulance and it was announced that the next 12 months fundraising wil go to cancer Research.

The ride up to the castle through the parkland was interesting this year as we were sharing part of our route with a triathalon. At the briefing before the ride, Pete warned us to give way to any runners that we encountered and there were plenty of them all the way through the park. I felt quite happy to be using 1440cc of Harley-Davidson power up the hills rather than the muscle power that the runners were having to employ.

After the cheque presentation, it was time to set out on the ride proper. Our route took us through Leicestershire towards Market Harborough and into the village of Tur Langton. We have now been here three times to the very welcoming hostelry, the Crown. Each time we have been there for a rideout, the staff have been great. They have put on a band, a barbecue and generally made us very welcome. Although the range and quality of food on the barbecue wasn’t quite up the high standard of last year, my burger was perfectly OK.

The first time we went to this unsuspecting little village, a couple of people raised quite a lot of money by riding their bikes naked along the main street.  A couple of tasteful pictures of this can be seen on the Hoggin The Beaver website. This naked riding has become something of a tradition and this year the assembled throng were stunned when someone came round with a jug saying that Sam wouls strip off and ride down the high street if we filled the jug with pound coins. It didn’t take long for the jug to filled with coins and notes of all denominations.

There was a lull while preparations were completed, although I suspect that this was well planned before the day. Eventually, no less than three bikes appeared, led by a naked Pete, followed by an equally naked Sam with another young lady on her pillion and a husband and wife couple. they were followed by the van from the Robin Hood Harley-Davidson dealership which had served as changing room and support vehicle.

There were lots of people taking pictures, so I am sure that these will appear sometime soon and maybe I’ll update this post when that happens.

In Part 3 I’ll cover Saturday evening’s entertainment and anything else I can think of about the weekend.

Ride Safe
Dave

Hoggin The Beaver V - Part 1

I almost wrote “Blogging The Beaver”, but that’s one step too cheesy, even for me.

If you stumbled across this post and are completely mystified about that title, stick around for a few moments and I’ll reveal all. You know, that might just be the most appropriate phrase that I could have used to describe the most recent weekend of our lives.

Hoggin the Beaver is an annual rally where (mostly) members of the Harley Owners Group get together as the culmination of a year’s considerable amount of fundraising. It’s held in the Vale of Belvoir, close to Belvoir Castle, where Belvoir is pronounced (and I know that you’re ahead of me here) Beaver! Obviously Hoggin The Beaver V is the fifth time that this event has been run.

Although the vast majority of people attending are from various HOG chapters, including Sherwood Chapter, it isn’t a chapter organised event, but is organised as a labour of love by Pete Clifford and his partner Sam York. They sort out the whole weekend between them with what always appears to be the absolute minimum of support from anyone else.

The format is much like any other biker rally (in my limited experience), with arrival and tent pitching on the Friday afternoon and evening, before Saturday’s main events and a Sunday packing up and travelling home.

This year, Friday was decidedly showery, but Sue and I had a dry journey from Nottingham to the venue, the Rutland Arms, aka the dirty Duck,  just outside the village of Woolsthorpe. We had bought a new tent a day or so earlier and we are very grateful to Eric, one of the Sherwood Chapter members, for his help putting it up.

This is an enormous 4 berth dome tent, and even though there are only the two of us who will ever use it, the domestic authority needs the extra space to scatter her belongings. (Don’t ask me, I’m just a man.)

One the tent was up, we could ignore the showers and turned our attention to our major responsibility of the weekend, providing the disco. It seems that it is 100% compulsory to have a live band to provide the evening entertainment at every rally. The band booked for Friday night was El Gecko, an alt.country four piece who were the most laid-back and easy-going bunch of musicians you could ever hope to work with. They arrived bang on time and took less than an hour to set up and be ready to go. I even had to invite them to take the time to do a full band soundcheck because they knew that I was waiting to start the disco. It was a refreshing contrast to work with these guys after one or two bands in previous years.

However, the problem with this venue has always been space. The stage is only just big enough for my own disco rig and the band. This means that Sue cannot take her rightful place at my side during the disco sessions and has to hang around at a loose end while I’m performing.  She won’t thank me for telling you that last year she got a bit drunk and got into an argument with a hanger-on from the band. This year, she took a book and sat in tent reading during my early sessions. We linked up while the band were on, and although I don’t normally drink at all when I’m doing disco, but everybody else was certainly getting stuck in, so Sue and I had a night on Magners cider.  It doesn’t take much to be enough for either of us these days, but it’s a fine tipple, if you like that sort of thing. But once the band had finished and I started my main set through until  about 1am, Sue went back to the tent and went to bed.

In Part 2 of this report, look out for my ride-out report and an update about Saturday night’s entertainment.

Ride Safe
Dave

Sorry for The Long Silence

It’s been quite a long time since my last “proper” post here - over a month, in fact. A lot has happened in that time , some of which I’ll try to catch up, and some of it will simply fade quietly into history. Our experience made bikes and trains rather less important for me for a while. The big news for me, though, has to be that we now know that Sue’s health is potentially much better than I believed it might be. If you haven’t been keeping up, Sue is my wife.

I’m not sure how much of the gory detail you want to read, nor how much Sue wants me to share with you, but it started with one of Sue’s routine visits to the doctor’s surgery.  We both seem to have a season ticket to that place these days; maybe it’s our advancing years and various bits of both of us starting to show some wear and tear.

Anyway, they found some blood in Sue’s urine sample and referred her straight to Nottingham City Hospital for what sound to me like a pretty dreadful test that involved looking at the inside of her bladder with a camera, using the access route that normally serves only as an exit and they found some abnormal growths inside her bladder. 

We both started to think the very worst and our fear wasn’t allayed very much when the medical people started talking about how the effects of bladder cancer weren’t as bad as some other kinds of cancer. Sue has been very quiet about the whole thing and really hasn’t said a great deal in the last month.  I have been very worried for her.  We’ve had lots of those odd conversations when I say “How are you feeling?” and she says ”Fine”, while all the time I know that she isn’t anything like fine, but have no idea what else to say.

My dad died of cancer a few years ago after a long time when we hadn’t really been in contact, so I also had a lot of bad feelings about this.

The hospital decided to book Sue for an overnight stay in hospital . The appointed date duly arrived and she went into hospital to remove these growths and to find out exactly what they were. The surgery took place using much the same kind of access as those tests. Frankly, it makes parts of my body contract with horror when I just think about what they put and where.

The ward where she stayed after the operation really highlighted the state of the NHS to me, with overworked staff having to prioritise the most seriously ill patients and so having to leave ones like Sue who may not have had the same level of physical needs for long periods. When I went to visit, She had been left for several hours in bed dressed only in one of those most unflattering operating theatre gowns; the ones that are open all down the back. She had also been given lots of water to drink and told that she had to pass this water to demonstrate that her bladder was still in working order.

We waited for ages for a nurse or member of staff to come to ask if she could get changed into her own nightdress before Sue decided to wait no longer, but to go for it on her own. Worse still, she needed to  get rid of all that water and didn’t feel able to walk down the ward to the bathroom on her own. eventually, the call of nature was so strong that I had to help her to walk down the ward myself.

On a more positive side, Sue loved the hospital bed, telling me many times how comfortable it was.

The following morning I picked her up from the hospital, by when she had been promised the results of the biopsy in “two to three weeks”.  The longest two or three weeks in recorded history dragged on towards a fourth week with no word. Sue phoned the hospital and talked to a secretary who would tell her only that a letter was on the way, but would give her no idea whether they had found cancer or not.

A letter from the hospital arrived, but this simply gave her an appointment to attend a clinic in October. We were both beside ourselves thinking that we wouldn’t have an answer for another three months.

Sue phoned the secretary again who would still tell her nothing, except that there was another letter on the way.

I was out when this letter arrived on Friday morning so Sue had to give me the best news of my entire life on my mobile phone while I was standing just outside a lift with a trolley full of CDs and disco equipment.

The tests had showed only some inflammation.

I suppose we should have celebrated, but even this wasn’t possible because we were in the middle of getting ready for a Harley Davidson weekend away.

I am writing this two days later on Sunday night and we still haven’t really had a chance to talk properly about this.  If ever there was a need for a bottle of wine it’s today, but I don’t even think we have any in.

The biggest lesson that I can take from this whole scare is just how much Sue means to me. The prospect of some illness taking her away from me, whether cancer or anything else, is too dreadful to consider.  I already knew that I love her. In the last month, I have started to realise just how much.

Being married can sometimes feel like a comfortable T-shirt. You like having it around, but don’t think about it very much. But the whole T-shirt anaolgy breaks down as soon as something like this turns up - a T-shirt will end up as a cleaning rag for the bike with it’s space in the drawer filled by a new one. There’s no way to ever replace Sue.

Ride Safe
Dave

Volunteer Coordinators’ Network Update 59 – Wednesday 9th July 2008

Welcome to Edition 59 of the VCN Update.

The VCN Update is sent by email to all members of Nottingham’s Volunteer Coordinators and Managers Network and, on request, to additional named contacts in member organisations.

There are 6 Information Items (and news of how to find Dave’s Gossip!) in this edition of the email:

1. Volunteer Managers’ Training – Managing Difficult Volunteers Wednesday 9th July

2. VCN Meeting Monday 21st July

3. Volunteer Service Manager Job Advert in Today’s Evening Post

4. Volunteer Centre Team Contact Details

5. Volunteer Expenses

6. Dave’s Gossip

---

1. Volunteer Managers’ Training – Managing Difficult Volunteers - Wednesday 9th July - Cancelled

I am devastated that we had to cancel the training session that was planned for today. We had arranged for internationally renowned trainer, Rick Lynch, to come from the USA to Nottingham to share some of his insights into this topic that affects all of us at some time.

When I came back from holiday on Monday, I discovered that there was only one person booked for this course.

Rick has very generously offered to come to Nottingham early in 2009 to run this session for us, but before I am able to accept his offer, I want to be sure that it will be worth his while. So… please let me know, buy phone, email or by any other means open to you why you did not book for today’s session. Was it the date, cost, poor marketing on my part or was there another reason why you stood us up in so spectacular fashion.

Please also let me know if the topic simply isn’t appropriate / relevant / interesting.

We have a number of other sessions in the pipeline as well for later in the year and I am currently having a re-think about these because I really don’t like the feeling of being a complete prat when I have to tell such high profile trainers that Nottingham doesn’t want to come to hear what they have to teach us.

The final part of this particular whinge is to let you know that I’m going to the Institute of Advanced Volunteer Management in Buxton in November where Rick will be one of the trainers. It’s going to cost us £550 and my boss and I both think it’s worth every penny.

In contrast, we offered a full day with Rick for £40 to VCN members!

2. VCN Meeting Wednesday 20th June 2-4pm

Now that the considerable stress of Volunteers Week is over, I really need to put some effort into the network again.

The July VCN meeting was supposed to be a VCN Plus session, but let’s turn it over to a proper networking meeting. I’m looking to do a variation of Speed Dating for this session where we can take a few minutes to talk to each other about our Volunteer Programme, and in particular, to focus on retention.

So please be prepared to share your experiences (several times!) of the things you do that help to keep your volunteers happy, to recognise their contribution and make them come back again.

It would be a big help if you would let me know whether you can come to this session so that I can plan to make this speed dating into a useful session as well as a fun one.

3. Volunteer Service Manager Job Advert in Today’s Evening Post

 … along with another couple of jobs here at NCVS.

So if you fancy being my boss, please apply.

4. Volunteer Centre Team Contact Details

With all the changes in the Volunteer Centre and NCVS, it’s probably worth updating you with our latest contact details.
I’m Dave Thomas, Volunteering Development Officer – Phone 0115 934 8431 davet@nottinghamcvs.co.uk

Jenny Idle is Volunteering Development Officer with responsibility for Investing in Volunteers – 0115 934 8436 jennyi@nottinghamcvs.co.uk

Gill Woodard is the Marketing Officer (awaiting a phone of her own!) but her email is buzzing on gillianw@nottinghamcvs.co.uk

Kirsty Watts is Partnerships Development Officer (who is also awaiting a phone) kirstyw@nottinghamcvs.co.uk

Kate Buchanan is Youth Volunteering Development Officer on 0115 934 9507 katebu@nottinghamcvs.co.uk

Jon Stevens is the Youth Volunteering Development Manager (phone number to be advised) jons@nottinghamcvs.co.uk

Kate and Jon are part of our new vInvolved team, along with Jo Thorpe, Tamara Riddell and Aaron Calladine, Youth Volunteering Advisors, who will shortly be outbased at Angel Row Library.

Once we have settled in a bit more and moved some of our desks around, had our phones sorted out and refilled the biscuit tin, I will update these contact details.

However, please remember that the whole team is here to support you in your work with volunteers (whether they are young people or not). If you talk to any of us, we’ll make sure that the right person gets your message and contacts you with the answer to whatever volunteering question you might have.

5.Volunteer Expenses

This is probably only of interest if you have volunteer drivers, or meet your volunteers’ mileage expenses for their volunteering.

For several years now, the Inland Revenue’s scale rate for car expenses has been 40p per mile. Judy Byron from Newark & Sherwood Voluntary Transport Scheme is one of those volunteer coordinators who feels that it is time that this limit was changed. She writes:

“I’ve set up an online petition to the PM asking for the 40p a mile mileage limit to be raised for volunteer drivers as it has been at this level since 2002. This is the 4^th year we will have paid this amount and drivers are not at all happy, especially with the steep increases in fuel recently.

I hope you will all sign it on the website http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/Voldrivers/

Thanks a lot.
Judy Byrom
Co-ordinator
Newark & Sherwood Voluntary Transport Scheme”

6. Dave’s Gossip

Almost from the beginning of these emails, I have put in a section about bikes, trains and the other odd things that I get up to away from work. Oddly enough, this has also been the most commented section of the email as well. However, I am very conscious of taking up lots of email space with this. So I decided to start a blog to capture some of this kind of stuff.

For the uninitiated, a blog, or Weblog, is a website that is quick and easy to update. Whilst there are some fantastic blogs online, mine isn’t one of them, but I’m having fun learning.

My own blog (this one) has been online since April and has 18 “posts” or items (so far). If you would like to see what I’ve been up to since the last VCN email, take a look at http://chuffinghog.wordpress.com/

Why ChuffingHog? Steam trains “chuff” and my big motorbike is a Harley-Davidson or “Hog”.

If you like this way of getting information out, I just might eventually move the whole of the email update to a blog format. Please leave a comment on the blog if you visit, or email me and let me know what you think of the whole crazy idea.

Ride Safe
Dave Thomas

Why Does Work Get In The Way Of Life And Blogging?

When I started these ramblings, I promised myself that I would try to keep work out of this. However, I am about to break that promise because work is the reason that this is my first post this month!

You may know that I work in a Volunteer Centre, one of a UK-wide network of independent, and very different organisations that serve as hubs for organisations that involve volunteers and for people who want to be volunteers. OK, there’s a bit more to it than that, but that’s the short version.

Every year, 1st - 7th June is designated as Volunteers Week. There’s a national “day” “week” or even “month” for almost everything, so why not? It’s been around for years and most Volunteer Centres try to do something to recognise the contribution that volunteers make, to raise the public profile of volunteering and to recruit new volunteers.  For most of us, most years, this is pretty low budget and therefore pretty low key. This year we broke the mould in Nottingham because we forged a partnership with the Community Development team at Nottingham City Council that planned and ran two very high profile events.

We took over Old Market Square on Saturday 7th June and set up about market stalls and invited a diverse bunch of more than 40 organisations to come along with information for potential volunteers, activities and even some food tasters. We also had about 100 volunteer entertainers; singers, dancers, Tai Chi and more along with an all-day outside broadcast by 97.5 Kemet FM, a local community radio station providing a reason for people to come to the square and to stay and walk round the stalls.  

The following day, we pitched up at Nottingham Playhouse where more than 120 volunteers entertained an invited audience of volunteers from organisations across the city.

Although both of these events were great and feedback from participants and the public seems to have been positive, the whole thing could easily have become a nightmare for me. 

That partnership that I have already mentioned originally involved three key members of the Volunteer Centre team. However, during the run-up to the event, two of the three moved on from their jobs, leaving me to pick up all of the Volunteer Centre’s side of the planning and organising. It could have been a disaster, but was saved by the support of a fantastic bunch of people from the council. Staff from more than one team within Community Development worked really hard to support me and make sure that between us, everything came together for the weekend. Even so, it was still the most stressful time I have spent at work in a long time.

It’s not quite all over even now, we are going to produce some kind of evaluation and we have already talked about doing it all again next year. 

And I want to be part of it.

Ride Safe
Dave

Ride Planning and Communication Between Rider & Pillion

This ride report is ostensibly about a ride that we did on Saturday during the only reasonable weather of the Spring Bank Holiday weekend. We set out to visit Bikers’ Gearbox at Matlock Bath to buy some new summer gloves to replace my old and very worn ones. We took our familiar route up the M1, along the A38 and A610 to the A6 from Ambergate into Matlock Bath. We parked a little further along the main street than we normally do and reversed the Heritage into the kerb at the side of a couple of other bikes outside a cafe and bar called “Charles”.  I believe that this must be fairly new as it had never previously registered on my radar, although a cafe in Matlock Bath is nothing out of the ordinary; there are lots of them.

As we pulled up, one of the staff from “Charles” spoke to us, encouraging us to try his place, but we were on a mission to visit the two bikers shops and were not going to be diverted. After a look round Adrian Peach’s shop, we went next door to Bikers’ Gearbox. With the help of the friendly staff there, we quickly found a suitable pair of gloves and Sue spotted an Oxford Tailpack hanging up in the shop. On asking the price, we were pleasantly surprised to discover that it was £24.99. We looked at another tailpack that the staff went out the back to fetch, but settled for the Oxford pack. This will come into its own when we head for Somerset in just a few weeks time.

With our purchases secured and packed into one of the panniers on the Heritage, our thoughts turned to lunch and we went into “Charles” (for which I can’t find a web link at the moment). We ordered that bikers’ staple of fish, chips and mushy peas with a couple of slices of bread on the side and a two teas. The tea turned up moments later in teapots with cups and saucers, followed by doorsteps of bread. Our meals were excellent and we were very happy with the food and the friendly service.

With the inner bikers satisfied, I was up for a ride and suggested to Sue that we head northwards rather than retrace the southerly route home. She agreed, although later may have come to regret this a little.

To be fair to Sue, she was a little “fragile” on Saturday because she had been out for a meal and team celebration the afternoon and early evening before with some work colleagues and had apparently made a heroic contribution to wine consumption.

Anyway, we headed north on the A6 and turned off just beyond Bakewell towards Monsal Head. After crawling up the road behind a low loader carrying an excavator, we spent a while on a bench looking over the amazing view of the valley and the old railway viaduct. (Take a look at Andy Savage’s great pictures of this area.)

We spotted a road along the valley floor and I suggested to Sue that we could follow this and find a way back around towards Bakewell via the lanes. So we set off via the villages of Cressbrook and Litton. It was somewhere around here that I went wrong because I turned right at a main road where I should have gone left to circle back towards Bakewell. It was when we reached the Ladybower Dam (of Dambusters fame) that I realised that we were slightly off our (un)planned route.

The sign gave us a choice of heading for Manchester or Sheffield and I chose the latter as the least worst option, hoping for a turn off to get us back south. This was not to be and we found ourselves in the city centre before long where I picked up signs for Chesterfield. I was riding along, minding my own business, when a tap came on my shoulder and a hand pointing to the right ahead of us. ”Great”, I thought, “she’s spotted a sign for Chesterfield that I had missed”. So I took the right fork at the traffic lights right in front of us.

This later proved to be my undoing because this helpful gesture from the pillion seat wasn’t a direction to a road, but a signal to look at the twin minarets on a large and very impressive mosque.

Some time later, on the road towards Bakewell, I realised the my mistake. Eventually we left Sheffield behind us and pulled up for coffee at a pub in the hills, on a roundabout where a road to Baslow and Chesterfield was signed. I think this was the Peacock.

After refreshment and recriminations, we headed down to Baslow and on to Chesterfield and to the M1 south and back home. I can say that neither of us enjoyed Sheffield very much, but the ride through the spectacular countryside scenery of Derbyshire and South Yorkshire was great. This was a route of a little over 100 miles in all and was a good one.

Ride Safe
Dave

Reflexology - Confessions of A Former Sceptic

Just occasionally, I have been called an old hippy. For the most part, I’ve been happy to go along with this - as long as it doesn’t impinge too much on my somewhat consumerist lifestyle. However, I have never really given a great deal of credibility to alternative medicine or therapy. However, a very good friend of ours, Kathy Thickpenny, must have some kind of magic in her hands because I have been persuaded in the past to go along to have my Chakra balanced using crystals - and felt that this had somehow benefited me.

This was nothing compared to my reaction to reflexology, though.

Kathy has been training in reflexology and asked Sue and I to be case studies for her. Naturally, I started out quite sceptical that having my feet poked and rubbed would have any effect.

I should explain at this point that my feet have never been my best feature. (I’m not even sure if I HAVE a best feature.) For many years I have had very poor circulation in my feet and this has left them cold and a very strange mottled blue colour. My doctor, the practice nurse and others have all remarked on this, but have never been sufficiently concerned about it to do anything, so I continued along life’s pathway holding on to the assumption that this is how it would always be.

Not so. The very first time that Kathy sat down and gave my feet “the treatment”, the mottling disappeared, they felt warrmer and I slept like a brick that night. I have been back half a dozen times since and the improvement in my circulation has surprised Kathy and me. In fact, Kathy has said several times that she wishes she’d take a photograph of my feet when we started to compare them with how they are now. (Don’t worry, these photos don’t exist, so I won’t inflict them on you.)

I have also been very impressed that Kathy has been able to identify other things that have been either temporarily or permanently ailing in other parts of my body by working on my feet. We have talked about energy flows and the like and I remain sceptical of such explanations, but I have to accept that there’s something in it because it works.

My own experience of this therapy has been during a very stressful time at work. Again, I am convinced that this has helped me to cope with the stress.

If you are anywhere in the Nottingham / Midlands area, you can find out more and contact Kathy vie her website.

Ride Safe
Dave