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Logo: Volunteering WA

Newsletter July 2019

e-news member,

  1. CEO's Welcome
  2. National Volunteering Conference - Call for abstracts open
  3. Sector News
  4. Have you reviewed your rules/constitution?
  5. Volunteering Australia's Stakeholder Survey
  6. Grants & Funding
  7. Training & Events
  8. Introducing our Board
  9. Corporate Volunteering
  10. VIRA/VIKTOR
  11. Member of the Month - Girl Guides
  12. New Members
  13. Shout out Saturday
Sponsors

CEO's Welcome

Welcome to the July edition of eNews.

As we move in to the new financial year, it’s been a great opportunity to reflect on our achievements over the last twelve months and to solidify our budgeting and planning for the next period. Our focus is very much on the needs of our members and addressing issues within the sector. The Volunteer Community Reference Group exists to provide a direct voice on volunteering issues from community to government and I’d urge you to please contact me if you have any specific topics for our next agenda.

Coming up next in our events calendar is National Student Volunteer Week from 12-18 August. The week was created to challenge and celebrate young people who are striving to make change through volunteering. In our State, students from The University of Western Australia together with Curtin, Notre Dame, ECU and Murdoch Universities will join forces to undertake a beach clean-up at C Y O'Connor Beach. I encourage you to visit here for more information on this fantastic week.

In November, we will be holding our annual Homeless Connect Perth event, in partnership with City of Perth and for the first time, in collaboration with WA Alliance Ending Homelessness (WAAEH). The format of the event remains as a one day one-stop-shop model providing immediate service provision to homeless people. It brings together community, business and government organisations to provide a diverse range of free essential services to people experiencing or who are at risk of homelessness. If you would like to keep up to date with the event please follow us on our Homeless Connect Perth Facebook page here or website

Volunteering Australia and LBG (London Benchmarking Group), managed by Corporate Citizenship, have this month launched ‘Corporate Volunteering in Australia: a snapshot’. The report features a case study of a very successful skills-based volunteering project between Woodside and City West Lotteries House. You can read more about this paper in this eNews. If you are a not-for-profit organisation and would like to utilise corporate volunteers for a short or long-term project, please email corporate@volunteeringwa.org.au

Lastly, the window for submitting an abstract for NVC2020 is closing on August 4. Please see below for further information or visit our conference website at https://volunteering2020.org/.

Happy Volunteering, Tina

National Volunteering Conference - Call for abstracts open

Volunteering Australia invites you to contribute your voice by submitting an abstract to present at the upcoming National Volunteering Conference to be held in Perth on 18-20 March 2020. Submissions are welcome from anyone with an interest in volunteering – volunteers, administrators, consumers, researchers, industry partners, corporates, peak bodies and national associations.

Abstracts relating to our conference theme of Diversity, Power, Purpose with a particular focus on the following sub-themes are encouraged:

  • Inclusion - how we extend the reach in our communities to leverage and embrace diversity through volunteering
  • Innovation - how we step up and harness the power of volunteering Australia-wide to challenge issues and positively influence societal change
  • Inspiration - how we can go beyond, discover, share purpose and shape the future of volunteering in Australia

Abstracts must be submitted online by Sunday 4 August 2019.

To submit an abstract click here.

Sector News

Corporate Volunteering in Australia: A snapshot

Volunteering Australia and LBG (London Benchmarking Group), managed by Corporate Citizenship, have published ‘Corporate Volunteering in Australia: a snapshot’. This paper pulls together data collected through Corporate Citizenship’s LBG framework that has tracked corporate community participation and value in Australia since 2006.

In addition to highlighting the many benefits of corporate volunteering for all stakeholders involved, the snapshot shows that many companies have a corporate volunteering program in place and intend to grow participation. Furthermore, employee participation has grown steadily since 2006, and Australian companies spend more as a percentage of their social investment budgets on corporate volunteering compared to global figures.

The snapshot also indicates that while (LBG member) corporate volunteers contributed over 1 million hours to the community in 2018, there is an additional 500 FTE of corporate volunteering capacity that is not utilised every year.

Click here for more information and to view the paper. 

Have you reviewed your rules/constitution?

When the Associations Incorporation Act 2015 (WA) commenced on 1 July 2016 all incorporated clubs and associations were allowed three years to review and update their rules (commonly called a constitution) to ensure it complied with the Act. This transition period expired on 30 June 2019.

If one or more of the Schedule 1 requirements are missing from your rules the relevant clause(s) from the Prescribed Model Rules will be deemed to apply. To avoid the uncertainty this will cause, if you have not done so already please conduct a review of your rules now.

Consumer Protection’s Rules Workbook is a step by step guide to help you review and update your rules to comply with the Act. You will find other useful change of rules resources on their website.

Volunteering Australia's Stakeholder Survey

Volunteering Australia is currently conducting its annual Stakeholder Survey and would greatly appreciate your feedback. 

Feedback received will assist in gauging what the sector needs from Volunteering Australia, as the national peak body for volunteering. This includes our representation, communications, research, development and promotion of policy solutions, and social media.

The survey will close at 5pm AEST on Tuesday 6 August 2019.
Complete the Stakeholder Survey here.

Grants & Funding

Seniors Week 2019 Community Grants Program

Applications are now open for the Seniors Week 2019 Community Grants Program. The closing date for submission of applications will be 5.00pm, Friday 16 August 2019.

COTA WA, supported by the Department of Communities, invites organisations to apply for funding to help meet the cost of hosting Seniors Week events and activities in Western Australia. Grants of up to $1000 are available to support an event or activity during Seniors Week or a contribution towards an existing and already planned event or activity. A limited number of larger grants, up to $3000, may be available for large events.

For further information please download a copy of the application form here.

Nominate your unsung hero of the community sector

Nominations are now open for the annual HESTA Community Sector Awards, which celebrate excellence in the sector and the extraordinary work of people across Australia in service provision, advocacy and leadership in improving the lives of people experiencing disadvantage.

Winners will share in a $30,000 prize pool, and will receive two tickets to attend the Awards Dinner, which will be held as part of the 2019 ACOSS National Conference, 26-27 November 2019, in Canberra. Nominate someone by 1 September 2019 here.

$4,000 WLA's Executive Ready Scholarship Program Nominations Now Open

Scholarship nominations for the Semester 2 intake of WLA's Executive Ready Program are now open. Interested parties are encouraged to nominate for the program. 

Executive Ready is a leadership and career accelerator purpose designed to stretch existing leaders and rapidly propel them towards executive level performance, behaviours and mindsets. The program challenges participants to see themselves, their responsibilities and their opportunities with fresh eyes, enabling and inspiring them to achieve their goals. To view the full program prospectus click here.

$4,000 partial scholarships are available to support women’s leadership development in selected industries. For more information, or to nominate yourself or a colleague please register your interest.

Training & Events

We have some fantastic training coming up in the next few weeks. Please visit our website here for a full schedule of upcoming sessions however we bring your attention to two that are very popular and filling up fast.

Volunteer Manager Networking
Monday 5 August 2019
9.30am to 12.00pm
| West Leederville

As part of our Taboo Topics series, our next Volunteer Manager Networking session will include special guest speakers from the Boronia Pre-release Centre for Women (Department of Justice). They will be talking about a ground-breaking initiative, a Reintegration through Volunteering Strategy. Come along and find out what’s benefit there could be to be a part of this initiative and if your organisation should be involved in a reintegration program. Nothing is taboo in this discussion and free event for those managing volunteers.Register here.

Introduction to Volunteering WA and VIKTOR
Thursday 8 August 2019
9.30am to 11.30am | West Leederville

Would you like to know more about the services and support that are available to you and your organisation as a member of Volunteering WA? Do you have questions about using VIKTOR (the national online volunteer recruitment platform) to promote your volunteer positions? If you are new to Volunteering WA or new to VIKTOR and responsible for volunteer recruitment, this session will get you off to a flying start! Free for members and those considering joining. Register here

Key Issues of Volunteer Management
Thursday 22 August 2019
9.30am to 4.00pm | West Leederville

Essential for everyone managing or coordinating volunteering effort, this fast-paced, information-rich one day workshop touches on everything you need to know about volunteer management. This workshop counts towards your VWA Volunteer Manager Endorsement. To keep costs affordable for everyone, this workshop is partly funded by the Department of Communities. The cost is $88/$145 and includes a comprehensive workbook. Register here.

Corporate Volunteer Workshop
Wednesday 28 August 2019
9.30am to 11.30am | West Leederville

Did you know that one of our member benefits is having access to corporate volunteers at no charge? Join VWA’s Corporate Team for a ‘Step into Corporate Volunteering’ session. VWA’s Corporate Team want to provide our members with a comprehensive introduction to the corporate volunteer program and work through real examples with you, to help you get the most from this fantastic member benefit. Register here.

Introducing our Board

In this regular feature of the eNews we showcase one of our hardworking and dedicated Board Members. Without their leadership and guidance, we wouldn’t be able to achieve all the successes we do. Thank you to our Board.

Dr Megan Paull

Director-Postgraduate Research & Senior Lecturer-Management, School of Business and Governance Murdoch University | Board Volunteering WA

Dr Megan Paull is a senior lecturer at Murdoch University where she teaches in Management, including a unit in Leading and Managing Nonprofit Organisations. Megan has had a long affiliation with Volunteering WA, having first been involved when undertaking research on managing change in volunteer involving organisations in the 1990's.

She has been a leader and driver of the Volunteering WA Research Committee since its inception in 2001. Having completed her research masters and her PhD researching difficult aspects of managing volunteers, Megan prides herself on ensuring that the work undertaken in her research is communicated back to the community and to those who contributed to the research.

Corporate Volunteering

Volunteering WA members can access skilled and/or teams of corporate volunteers. We also help you structure the projects to maximise this resource. To find out more about this program, register here for our upcoming information session. Here's a couple of our latest activities:

25 individuals upskilled in risk management

Twenty five individuals from community organisations took part in an interactive risk management fundamentals workshop, facilitated by Bankwest as part of the Volunteering WA skilled volunteering programme.

Feedback reflected that Bankwest presenters Vanessa, Neil and Simeon presented valuable insights and teachings around topics such as managing and measuring risk, developing a risk appetite and a risk register.

The session is a wonderful example of our corporate partners helping to build capacity in the community sector. Any community organisations with volunteers that are interested in learning more about risk management fundamentals from industry experts can register here for our next session. 

BHP making a difference at Foodbank

In June, BHP staff supported Foodbank in making emergency relief hampers and putting together meat packs. Foodbank provides more than 70% of the food rescued for food relief organisations nationwide. This is no small feat that involves plenty of volunteer support.

VIRA/VIKTOR

We welcome our new VIRA users, a lot of whom have attended our VIRA trainings sessions, both online and in our West Leederville office. It’s always great to hear feedback of how VIRA is helping volunteer managers as a tool to record volunteers’ details, contribution in hours, services provided, recognition, reimbursement and training undertaken. Whilst VIRA is excellent for all of these aspects of volunteer management, it is also useful for internal and external management with committees, funding submissions, organisational strategic planning and funding reports.

We encourage any of our members to look at how VIRA can streamline your processes by viewing our introductory video. Our next training session in West Leederville is on 21 August and you can register here or please contact vira@vol.org.au to get in touch with us sooner.

Member of the Month - Girl Guides

This month we present to you our member organisation Girl Guides WA. Established in 1915, Girl Guides WA has become the largest youth organisation for girls and young women in Western Australia (with over 2000 youth members), and offers a life-changing program that supports girls in becoming their best selves, and growing into confident, self-respecting, responsible community members. The organisation welcomes girls and women from all backgrounds, faiths and cultures, and Girls Guides are encouraged to speak out on issues they are passionate about and to develop values of compassion, inclusion and resilience.

On the local level, Units are led by volunteer leaders, who run weekly meetings with a group of girls of a specific age group in a community centre or hall, during which they help girls develop skills, positive values and confidence through fun activities. Leaders are members of Girl Guides WA, they are trained in emergency first aid and leadership skills, and are regularly offered training by a qualified team.

The Unit Leaders value this experience, as they gain all-round confidence and skills, experience the joy of helping girls grow, develop lifelong friendships, and have loads of fun! Girl Guides WA are always on the lookout for volunteers to lead local Units and take Girl Guides WA forward with their modern goals of empowerment, confidence and advocacy.

New Members

A warm welcome to our new and returning members:

Regional members:

We look forward to working with you.

Shout out Saturday

Do you need help finding volunteers to fill a position in your organisation? Our Saturday feature, only for members, advertises your position on our Facebook page which is followed by over 5,800 followers. Email nazreen@volunteeringwa.org.au to promote your volunteer vacancies.

Please ensure your volunteering role is on VIKTOR so that we can link the Facebook post straight through to the Volunteering WA website.