Volunteer Week momentum

7 June 2022

Volunteers’ Week was celebrated in a variety of ways but for most it had to be scaled down with some organisations still having restrictions in place. In addition many people were involved with the Jubilee celebrations which coincided with Volunteers’ Week.

However, there were still a lot of innovative ideas and plans for bigger and better events next year.

Keeping the momentum going can be a challenge but small events and short videos on social media are just a couple of the many things that you can keep going throughout the year.

Some innovative ideas from this year were:

• A member of staff who is a keen photographer recognised the work that the volunteers were doing for their service and took it on himself to reach out to them to see who would like to feature in a book about ‘Ordinary People Who Do Something Extraordinary’. Photographs were taken of the individual volunteers then added a really short snapshot of their life showing the variety of experience these volunteers have. A photo book was created so that people can purchase it for a small price and any money that is made goes into the charity fund. A great way to celebrate volunteers and raise money at the same time.

• Small scale ‘High Tea’ with a Jubilee theme featuring lots of flags and bunting funded by the Trust’s charity.

• An amateur video (2 minutes and 20 seconds) of the volunteers and execs saying how great the volunteers are - this was posted on social media throughout Volunteers’ Week and helped to raise the profile, the type of opportunities that are available, the diversity of candidates that they are looking for and how much the execs appreciate what they do. This short video generated a lot of enquiries.

• A quality card with a message from the Chief Exec, a packet of seeds and a certificate for every volunteer. The Trust received good feedback from their volunteers; the message from the Chief Exec made them feel particularly appreciated.

Other activities included:

• Picnics

• Face to Face Tea, chat and quiz.

What did our guests think about Volunteers’ Week?

• The wrong time of year.

• For a lot of people June is the start of the summer holiday season so they are too busy to participate in any events, especially as this year coincided with the Jubilee celebrations.

• Carers’ Week follows on immediately after.

• Two organisations mentioned that they hold annual celebration events for volunteers in the autumn and prefer to focus on these events as the main form of recognition for their volunteers.