RAF Ingham Heritage Group have spent many years rejuvenating the old and derelict RAF Ingham base and are in need of volunteers to support for their opening event, as well as longer term.
They had registered on our Volunteering Platform in the hope of this but after two months had no applications and their planned open day on 20th April 2024 was fast approaching.
We reviewed the opportunity description on our Volunteering Platform and suggested amendments. These included splitting the listing and recategorising them to make them easier to find.
We also suggested adding an ‘Event’ listing on our Volunteering Platform as this will have the opportunities linked to it and sits on a prominent place on the website so footfall should be increased. The organisation provided the listings content and we did all the necessary actions on our Volunteering Platform.
There have been two new applications to the organisation’s roles with one of those already being successfully placed. The number of average clicks on the opportunities have increased and currently the event listing clicks total is 166.
We have more to learn in terms of how we can best utilise the ‘Event’ function in different scenarios, but we have received positive results on this occasion.
An appointment had been made following an outreach session, for a Ukrainian lady.
Whilst she was able to converse in English at a basic level, she wasn’t able to engage in a meaningful conversation about her interest in volunteering.
This lady has much to offer an organisation, and is keen to volunteer perhaps as a pathway to employment, so it was important to be able to help her.
After welcoming the lady, we decided to use a translation app on her phone to help with the appointment. This required her to speak in Russian, for us to read the translated text, then for us to speak in English and her to read the translated text.
Although it wasn’t as smooth as a regular appointment, we got into our rhythm and had a really good conversation and discussion, and even had a laugh.
We have emailed role descriptions for the opportunities she was interested in, and we did this using the translation function on our Volunteering Platform, so she has them in her own language
Sadly, the opportunity the volunteer chose is now no longer available, so support has been offered to help her choose an alternative role to apply for.
St Barnabas contacted us after having added around 30 opportunities to our Volunteering Platform. There was a difficulty in terms of distinguishing which applicants were new within their provider account and which had already been contacted and were therefore ‘pending’.
There wasn’t at that time a way around this issue within the system, meaning that a lot of time was being wasted having to look at each opportunity record. This was of concern, as St Barnabas have a lot of opportunities across the County and we wanted them to be positively engaged with the system from early on.
We contact the support team behind our Volunteering Platform about the problem. Whilst we were awaiting a response, we were able to suggest some practical work arounds that could be used in the event that the support team were unable to make any changes to the platform.
The support team though, responded within six hours to report that as a result of the issue being raised, they had made some significant changes which would fix the issue and had rolled these out to the benefit of all of their other customers.
We were able to facilitate the problem being fixed within a very short turnaround time. This increased St Barnabas’ confidence in the system and the fix has meant that they are happy to use it as it is cutting administrative times for them.
St Barnabas now advertise 63 opportunities through the system and have received 55 applications since launch in January.
Currently 5 volunteers have been placed and we should see this figure steeply increase in the next quarter due to longer application processes being in place.
To attend the DWP Jobs and Training Fair in Gainsborough to promote, across a mixed age demographic, the benefits of volunteering, to encourage interest in volunteering and to raise awareness of the various volunteering opportunities available within the organisation’s we have registered.
We used our Voluntary Centre Services banner plus various marketing tools such as leaflets and pens, to create an eye-catching display stand. Direct eye-contact and friendly approach to engage attendees, introduced Voluntary Centre Services and our function.
Provided each visitor to the stand with the ‘How to Make a Difference’ leaflet, marked and highlighted the website on this for them to explore/register their interest later, via the Voluntary Centre Services ‘I want to Volunteer’ links.
Promoted Voluntary Centre Services to other organisations for the potential to promote their own volunteering opportunities.
Spoke with forty three individual attendees and eight organisations.
Aware of at least two interested attendees that have since made an appointment at Voluntary Centre Services Gainsborough office to discuss volunteering opportunities.
One organisation accepted the offer to assist them in registering potential volunteers and Grant/Funding support in January 2024 (Connexions Community Hub).
Volunteer and Contact Association (VCA) is a registered charity established in 1989. Their aim is to act as an umbrella for metal health support groups to run in the Lincolnshire area.
They approached us as their longstanding Treasurer has a long-term illness and is stepping down. However the committee members were nervous on taking on the role and were reluctant to take it on and approached us for assistance.
After an initial meeting with the chair and a couple of trustees of the VCA, our Groups Development Officer attended a committee meeting and conducted some informal training on the role of being a Treasurer to aid with dispelling some of the myths of the role and answering any questions they may have.
They then had a second meeting with the person who was going to undertake the Treasurer role to look at their current financial processes and gave advice on how to streamline these, including creating a simple Volunteer Expenses form they and their volunteers can use.
The committee are feeling more confidence in their understanding of the role of a Treasurer and they have identified a person who may take on this role in the interim.
They also working on having better and more robust financial processes in place.
The chair said the informal training was “very interesting and very helpful”.
On the 25th of August 2024, our Social Prescribing Link Workers Caitlin and Vanessa attended the WOW Summer School event at the University of Lincoln.
The University invites students who have been diagnosed with Autism and Learning Disabilities to stay at the University for a few days and take part in events so they can familiarise themselves with buildings, staff and the local area whilst hopefully making friends before starting their studies in September.
During the 2-hour information event, 54 students were spoken to about the social prescribing service and the wide range of activities that take part across the city.
Students were mostly interested in the offer provided by The Network as this is targeted to their age range as well as other craft groups. A few students also asked about volunteering and as our volunteer team were also in attendance, we were able to connect them directly to the team.
This is the first time that the University has invited outside organisations to this event. The hope is that that the students have the information early, helping them to access support in a timely manner should it be needed.
The feedback from students on the day was positive. Students were thankful for the information as they had not heard of social prescribing before, some stating they had accessed a social prescribing service at home and some stating that they may refer to the social prescribing service for further support.
As a team, support will continue to be offered to the University by attending the Wellbeing meetings every 6 weeks and any future events where social prescribing can provide a service to the University and the students.
