1. Volunteering Bristol
VOF NEWSLETTER
November 2009
In this issue: New Service from Volunteering Bristol
New Service from
Volunteering Bristol Volunteering Bristol is pleased to be one of only two
successful applicants in the South West to be awarded
Annual General Meeting a grant through Capacitybuilders to offer further direct,
Volunteering Bristol practical support to people who manage volunteers. This
follows on from gaining the BIG Lottery funded project
Next VOF Meeting
and confirms Volunteering Bristol’s position as a leading
Volunteer Management volunteering support organisation.
Training & Action This additional support will be offered particularly to
Learning small and newly-established community groups in
Bristol. “This is an opportunity to give even more
Christmas Volunteering
support to volunteer managers and their volunteers”
Paul Madine,
Volunteers Fair says Paul Madine. “Funded until March 2011, it will
allow us to recruit a full time advisor who will provide Chief Executive of
Vetting and Barring 1-1 advice and guidance on identifying suitable roles for Volunteering Bristol
Scheme Info Session volunteers. Volunteer managers and their volunteers
Taking Minutes at will be able to take coaching sessions to develop their skills, improving their
Meetings volunteering experience and making it easier for organisations to recruit and
Model Job Description retain people from more diverse groups.”
A particular feature of this new programme will be to develop guidance for
Volunteering England volunteer managers to use as part of the support needs assessment of new
Information Service volunteers. This helps to fill a gap identified by many volunteer managers during
New Global Website the research and consultation undertaken by Volunteering Bristol as part of the
planning of the project in the summer.
Volunteer Rights If you are interested in finding out more, contact Volunteering Bristol. It is
planned that the programme will be operational by mid December. In the
Next VOF Meeting meantime email us on paul@bristolvolunteers.co.uk or telephone 0117 989
 December 2009
9th

12noon—2.00pm Annual General Meeting

Volunteering Bristol

Guest speaker from Volunteering Bristol’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) is
Avon & Constabulary coming up on 16th December from 6.15pm in our offices off
speaking about Queens Square. After the meeting guests can enjoy
refreshments including a glass of wine.
involving
ex-offenders Please RSVP to support@bristolvolunteers.org.uk if you are interested in

 Topic :
Hot attending, to help us with numbers for refreshments.
What do you do to
recognize volunteers?

2. Volunteer Management Training and Action Learning
Volunteering Bristol has started running its
Volunteer Management training with great success Call for Christmas
and high levels of attendance! So thanks for
everyone who has attended so far. We have run Volunteering
training on recruiting and retaining volunteers and
are soon to put on training in ‘Improving the
Diversity of your Volunteer Workforce’, ‘Volunteers With the season of goodwill fast
and the Law’ and our new session ‘How to Deal approaching, the Volunteer
with Difficult Issues in Volunteer Management’. Centre gets lots of requests for
volunteering over the Christmas
There is still time to book onto these courses period. We would love to hear if
through Voscur’s website www.voscur.org but if you have any plans for Christmas
you are all booked up before Christmas then for which you could do with an
watch this space for sessions running again in the extra pair of hands! Whether it’s a
New Year. Christmas party, putting up
decorations or dressing up as Santa there are lots
2010 also sees the arrival of the new Action
of willing volunteers who would love to help, so
Learning Sets for Volunteer Managers! Action
please let us know if you have any opportunities.
Learning is a concept whereby people meet
You don’t necessarily have to do a registration form,
together once a month for 6 months and each get
as long as we have a few lines of description.
a chance to work through problems in their pro-
jects. The group then supportively works together
to set actions to deal with these individual
challenges and learn from the experience of
others in the group. The course of 6 sessions There are currently 11.6 million
costs £90 (usually £300) and there may be bur- people in England who
saries available so we will keep you updated with volunteer every month.
dates once they are released.
Volunteers Fair a great success
Volunteering Bristol’s Volunteer Recruitment Fair held in Upper Horfield Community Centre in
September was deemed a great success by exhibitors and public alike. More than 80 potential
volunteers visited during the day on 24 th September, ensuring that the 17 local organisations
were kept busy dealing with enquiries. Several organisations were pleased to be able to turn
those enquiries into actual volunteer placements while others successfully raised awareness of
their organisations and the work they do in their communities, as well as sowing the seeds for
future volunteering, so thanks very much to everyone who got involved in
the day.
We will be holding another Volunteer Recruitment Fair in the New Year,
this time in south Bristol. We hope that lots of organisations will join us
again.

3. Information Session on new Vetting and Barring Scheme
Volunteering England are running an information session specifically on volunteering and the
Independent Safeguarding Authority’s (ISA) new Vetting and Barring Scheme.
The session will include high profile volunteer management experts covering what the Vetting
and Barring Scheme is as well as the legal implications and what is involved in carrying these
checks out.
There are currently 17.9 million It will take place on 20th November from 9.15-2pm in
people in England who volunteer London and costs £100 for Volunteering England mem-
bers and £135 for non-members. See Volunteering Eng-
at least once a year.
land’s events page for more details: http://
www.volunteering.org.uk/W hatW eDo/Events/
Volunteering+England+Events/Volunteering+safeguards-
Training Opportunity! +an+information+session+on+your+role+and+responsibiliti
es.htm
Taking Minutes at Please note: if you unable to make this meeting or do not
Meetings have the funds to attend then we will be trying to do
something similar in Bristol in the future when we have
more information on the scheme. Presently we are waiting
Barton Hill Settlement Workshop are for it to be reviewed.
running a 1 day low cost training session
on making minutes at meetings. It’s
aimed specifically at people in the Model Job Description for
voluntary and community sector and Volunteer Co-ordinators
covers areas such as:
Volunteering England have recently revised the Volunteer
 What minutes are for Co-ordinator Job description on the Prospects website
 Different styles of minutes which is aimed at graduates. You may find it interesting to
 What to include and what to leave view the description of the role from a general perspective,
out
especially if your organisation is looking to employ a volun-
 Tips for note-taking
 How to turn notes into minutes teer co-ordinator in the future.
 The language to use
See the website here: http://www.prospects.ac.uk/p/
The training takes place on 10th types_of_job/volunteer_work_organiser_job_description.jsp
November from 9.30am — 3pm at Barton
Hill Settlement, 43 Ducie Road, Barton
Hill, Bristol BS5 0AX and costs £30.
To book onto the course telephone 28% of people in the South West have
0117 955 6971.
participated in regular volunteering. This is
higher than the national average of 23%.
Have your say
Don’t forget to go to www.bristol.gov.uk/vcssupport to view information on Bristol City Council’s
consultation with the Voluntary and Community Sector about the support services that you need.

4. Volunteering England’s Information Service News
Volunteering England’s Information Service is now only open to
Volunteering England members. This includes their telephone helpline,
email enquiries and the Good Practice Bank. If you are not a member of
Volunteering England, you can apply on their website or contact
Volunteering Bristol to get guidance on best practice in volunteer
management. We are members of Volunteering England so
Welcome to the Team
would be happy to enquire on behalf of volunteer-involving
We would like to warmly welcome
organisations. Sarah Silcock into Volunteering
Bristol. She will be assisting on the
Volunteer Management Project
alongside Jenny Idle and helping
New Global Website for Volunteer Management out with putting together VOF
meetings and the newsletter as well
Resources as a variety of other admin tasks so
you’ll be seeing her at the back of
VOF meetings scribbling minutes in
Our Shared Resources has recently been launched as a website the near future!
to help share resources from volunteering projects across the
globe. Rather than recreating the wheel, volunteer managers can
learn from other project’s policies and procedures and make it
easier to learn from good practice of other projects. To start
Supported by Bristol City Council
searching or posting your documents, visit the website http://
www.oursharedresources.com/ .
Volunteering England to Examine Volunteer
Rights
Volunteering England are set to open an inquiry next month
Volunteering
into the rights of volunteers following concerns about
Bristol
volunteers having no legal rights, sometimes leading to unfair
dismissals of volunteers. It is hoped that the inquiry will help Royal Oak House
protect volunteers from discrimination in the same way that Royal Oak Avenue
paid staff are protected regarding issues such as gender, Bristol
BS1 4GB
ethnicity and religious discrimination. This also coincides with
Phone: 0117 989 7734
the proposal in the last VOF newsletter to include volunteers Mobile: 0790 3837818
in the Single Equality Bill, showing a growing concern for the E-mail: jenny@bristolvolunteers.org.uk
rights of volunteers. To find out more see the Third Sector
website http://www.thirdsector.co.uk/News/
DailyBulletin/949968/Volunteering -England-examine -
volunteer-rights/F46C58191D24F6D27965903A68486801/?
DCMP=EMC-DailyBulletin