Filed under: meetings | Tags: England, Europe, funding, volarts, volunteering
On Wednesday I was back in London to attend the England Volunteering Development Council meeting where we heard from Markus Held, Director of the European Volunteer Centre about plans for the European Year of Volunteering 2011. The European Commission agreed, in June this year, to designate 2011 as the European Year of Volunteering and it is now awaiting approval from the 27 national ministers on 27 November. The aim is “to get Europe talking about volunteers for a whole year”. Assuming it goes ahead, one effect will be that for the next two years existing EU funding programmes will give priority to applications relating to volunteering. More details at http://www.eyv2011.eu.
Robin Simpson.
Filed under: meetings | Tags: arts, DCMS, education, England, Northern Ireland, olympics, OTS, Scotland, UK, vcs, volarts, volunteering
I was in London on Wednesday to take part in the ‘Volunteering and London 2012’ symposium, organised by Volunteering England. This event brought together volunteering agencies and voluntary sector infrastructure organisations from across the UK. We heard from David Huse, Head of Volunteering at LOCOG, about the latest plans for recruiting, training and managing the 70,000 games-time volunteers needed to help run the Olympic and Paralympic Games: the application process for these volunteers (including volunteer performers for the ceremonies) will be launched in summer 2010. We then had a presentation from the Government Olympic Executive about plans for a social legacy marketing plan: the ‘big idea’ is to use London 2012 to inspire participation in volunteering, culture, sport, education and more, across the UK. There will be a campaign to inspire the whole of the country to give time to their local communities. A creative agency has just been appointed and the campaign will be launched in early 2010. We also heard from the Volunteer Development Agency in Northern Ireland, Volunteer Development Scotland and Greater London Volunteering about the progress of their 2012 volunteering initiatives – including the ‘People Making Waves’ programme in Scotland which includes Voluntary Arts Scotland’s ‘Make a Splash’ project. The symposium was followed by a second meeting of the London 2012 Volunteering Legacy Stakeholder Advisory Group where we specifically focussed on the Volunteering England/YouthNet project which is expanding the national volunteering database (do-it.org.uk) to include a wide range of opportunities catalysed by London 2012.
Robin Simpson.
EVDC is always a great networking opportunity, bringing together a wide range of volunteering infrastructure and volunteer-involving organisations. At the last two meetings we have been discussing the future role of EVDC – its functions, membership and administration. While there is a danger of doing too much navel-gazing, it has been helpful to revisit the purpose of these meetings. We also heard this week about the progress of the Association of Volunteer Managers, which has just had its second AGM, and about the Volunteering England/British Red Cross fringe events at the main political party conferences.
Robin Simpson.
Also on Tuesday I was at the Cabinet Office for my regular update meeting with John Knights at the Office of the Third Sector. Among many topics we discussed plans for the European Year of Volunteering 2011, the Government’s intergenerational volunteering programme, the Access to Volunteering programme and the London 2012 social legacy which seems to be taking shape and should present some exciting opportunities for the voluntary arts sector.
Robin Simpson.
Filed under: meetings | Tags: ace, arts, DIUS, England, olympics, OTS, volarts, volunteering
On Tuesday I was in London to meet Claire Easterman, Fiona Jamieson and Katie Jackson at YouthNet to talk about their project, funded by the Office of the Third Sector, to develop the national volunteering database (‘do-it’) to create a single place to bring together opportunities to participate inspired by 2012. There are three specific areas of focus for the project, one of which is culture and the arts. YouthNet plans to work with membership organisations to develop and advertise volunteering opportunities for people inspired by the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. I wanted to check whether the project is still to include both formal volunteering opportunities and arts participation: YouthNet is still keen to realise this goal but, because of how the project has been funded, the main focus has to be on formal volunteering. Also, although there are hopes to link to databases in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, the project will have to concentrate on opportunities in England. We talked about how to link the YouthNet project to the informal adult learning ‘portal’ being developed by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the online aspects of Arts Council England’s forthcoming national campaign on arts participation – all three of which should provide voluntary arts groups with the opportunity to advertise for more members. YouthNet is keen to work with ACE and DBIS and I am optimistic that we will be able to achieve a solution that means voluntary arts groups only have to enter their details once.
Robin Simpson.
On Thursday I was back in London to attend a meeting of the England Volunteering Development Council. We heard a presentation on the progress of the Modernising Volunteering National Support Service which is looking at employer-supported volunteering, new forms of volunteering, volunteering in faith-based organisations and increasing diversity. Justin Davis-Smith from Volunteering England talked about the work VE has been doing with the TUC to update the guidelines on relations between paid staff and volunteers which date back to 1979: comments are sought by the end of July on the draft new guidelines which are on the Volunteering England website. We had an update on the ‘refresh’ of the Voluntary Sector Compact: the revised Compact will be available from next Monday 20 July for a three month consultation. There was some concern about the implementation of the Department for Work and Pensions volunteering brokerage scheme which aims to place 34,000 long-term unemployed people in volunteering opportunities over the next two years. Saskia Daggett from Volunteering England presented a comprehensive review of the work of the six action groups which were established to follow-up the recommendations of the Commission on the Future of Volunteering. These action groups have now finished their work and the list of their achievements is very impressive. Finally we heard more details of the YouthNet/Volunteering England 2012 Volunteering Legacy project which aims to build a sustainable electronic volunteering infrastructure.
Robin Simpson.
Filed under: meetings | Tags: ace, DCMS, education, England, olympics, OTS, UK, volunteering
Finally on Wednesday I took part in a preliminary meeting of the 2012 Olympics Volunteering Inspiration and Legacy Stakeholders Advisory Group at the Cabinet Office. This is to become the formal stakeholder advisory group for the government’s 2012 legacy programmes. We heard from David Brooker, Director of Legacy at the Government Olympic Executive, who is responsible for all aspects of the legacy the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games are intended to generate. The Government’s 2012 Legacy Action Plan was published in June 2008 and covers the legacy for East London, the legacy for sport, the economic legacy and the social legacy. David spoke to us specifically about the social legacy programmes, focussing particularly on the planned campaign to inspire participation and the plan to increase levels of volunteering. These will involve a major social legacy marketing campaign linked to a mechanism for directing people to opportunities to participate in sport, health, education, the environment and culture across the UK. Claire Easterman from YouthNet explained the YouthNet/Volunteering England project, funded by the Office of the Third Sector, which will develop the national volunteering database (‘do-it’) to create a single place to bring together all the opportunities to participate which are inspired by 2012. I still have concerns about the lack of connection between this project and both the informal adult learning ‘portal’ being developed by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the online aspects of Arts Council England’s forthcoming national campaign on arts participation – all three of which should provide voluntary arts groups with the opportunity to advertise for more members. But I am pleased to be part of this new stakeholder advisory group and hope to be able to ensure that the voluntary arts sector takes advantage of the various opportunities presented by the 2012 legacy programmes.
Robin Simpson.
My second meeting on Wednesday morning was with Tony Edwards, the new Director of Trading & Enterprise at Volunteering England. Tony is working on a three-year plan to develop earned income for the organisation by promoting membership of Volunteering England, publications and events and the Investors in Volunteers award. We talked about the relevance and benefits to voluntary arts organisations of Volunteering England’s work and agreed to look further at how we might be able to work more closely together.
Robin Simpson.
