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Brief Report

Date	Event
23.06.2006	Goldstar Regional Conference (East Midlands)

Number of Delegates	Location
34 (click to view list)	Walkers Stadium Leicester

Format
1. Interviews with GoldStar Exemplar project managers 2. Workshops relating to recruitment and selection and progression pathways

A more detailed outline of some of the issues arising as part of the event is also available on this websit

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GoldStar Interviews: Two GoldStar project managers provided a number of insights into how volunteers are recruited and supported:

• Rob Clarke from Cheetham Hill Advice Centre (CHAC), which recruits, trains, supervises and supports local residents as volunteer advice workers, receptionists and administrators, with a particular focus on the recruitment of volunteers in groups at risk of social exclusion. This is achieved through adverts reaching residents in areas of high social deprivation, highlighting a particular interest in applications from asylum seekers, refugees, and bilingual speakers of Urdu/Punjabi or other community languages, displaying recruitment posters in local community centres, agencies and commercial outlets that provide services to BME communities, and recruiting those previously using the advice services of the Centre.

Two key themes were addressed as part of the event, these being recruitment and selection and support and supervision.

The following views expressed by Rob and delegates at the event provide a flavour of some of the issues raised.

“One of the things that works well is if you are more specific about what you want want in terms of volunteering. So if you make a specific offer, instead of saying, would you like to volunteer to do anything”.

“If funding was targeted properly there would be far more volunteers in our sector”

“Because we are training them to be volunteer advice workers, we have quite a long recruitment process in terms of making sure what we offer is right for that person and then once they start, they are on a training course to begin with and also coming into the centre to put what they are learning into practice”

“You need funding for a paid staff member (To support volunteers). It is not fair to put this on unpaid staff”.

In relation to six monthly volunteer reviews “It is mainly to check the volunteer is OK, but also to pick up whether they would like to move on, if they would like training, but it is (also) partly to check I am doing my job correctly”.

“Volunteers give so much, so we always have a special Christmas event. It is just to say thank-you to the people that have helped us deliver”

A more detailed outline of some of the issues raised as part of the event is also available on this website. See full report

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