June wishes

Twitter is being used to send wishes for June.
My wish is that my sister is healed.

Monday Motivation Monday 30 May, 2011

"Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing." -- Helen Keller

The Power and the Passion in Volunteer Management

In the Global Volunteer Management Survey there were very few correlations for length of service of managers of voluntaries. We looked at degree, salary, size of programs- no consistent correlations. What then makes a person stay in volunteer management?

The one factor that I personally believe will guarantee the longevity of someone in the volunteerism field? Passion for volunteering.

Really understanding volunteering is like a religion. You can study religious texts and precepts but until you have a “conversion:” experience, the religion is simply formulaic and ritualistic.

To be successful manager of volunteers, to be a successful volunteer centre, you need to believe in volunteering. It may even be good to have volunteered or be volunteering yourself?

I will go further. Some of those who don't have a real passion for volunteering are to my eyes, some of the most  defensive, narrow minded and undermining people in the volunteering sector. Others who don't really "get" volunteering resort to motherhood statements and platitudes  to try and understand it.. I recently  reviewed a government document clearly written by a bureaucrat who didn't really get the power of volunteering and reverted instead to platitudes about volunteering such as "helping the community" and "Volunteering is the Hallmark of our society" 

Some people chose volunteer management because they thought it would be “an easy gig”. Volunteering is seen as easy therefore volunteer management is seen to be a job that could be akin to a holiday! What a sign that they don't really understand volunteer management.

Some who dont "get this field have fallen by the wayside- leaving for other roles. Some have stubbornly stayed and some have had their "conversion experience" and have become great advocates for the sector. 

That's my theory. Now, prove me wrong.  

Monday Motivation: 23 May, 2011

I have become my own version of an optimist. If I can't make it through one door, I'll go through another door - or I'll make a door. Something terrific will come no matter how dark the present.
Rabindranath Tagore

That poster won't go away

Oh dear oh dear. I find myself blogging again about this year's Australian National Volunteer week poster.

You may recall that I did an unofficial survey and found that 60 per cent of managers of volunteers did not like the poster and 20 per cent were neutral about it.

National Volunteer Week in Australia has come and gone and now Volunteering Australia are evaluating the week.  This is good.  I firmly believe in evaluation of activities and resources.

However, the survey questions caused me some concern.

For example, take survey Question 11:
Did you find the following free NVW promotional products suitable to promote the week?

The question then asks you to rate the Posters and the Pins with only three choices:

1. I didn't use them
2. They were ok
3. They were fantastic


What happens if you wanted to choose: "4. They sucked"? or "4. They were disappointing".

What are we are afraid of to not know the truth?

Question 12
Did you use any of the free resources on the Volunteering Australia website?
The choices to rate the resources are:

• didn't know it was available
• didn't use it
• used it and it was okay
• used it and loved it

Same deal. Surely there needs to be an option that says: "Used it and it was disappointing".

As it stands, the results will give an impression that 100% of people  who didn't use the products thought they were okay or they loved them. Not entirely accurate surely?

I am not doing this just to have a go at Volunteering Australia.  It is  frustrating that poor survey design gets in the way of accuracy. If we want to really reach people with good materials and resources, we need to find out the truth?

US National Conference on Volunteerism and Service

This is what I am doing at the National Conference in New Orleans, Lousiana. Am looking forward to the sessions. I am really annoyed by the inclusion of hashtags for every session but I will be using them!


Volunteer Management Toolkit 2011 (5491)
Tuesday, June 7, 2011 8:30 AM - 10:00 AM
Focus Area: Manage Volunteers
Target Audience: Volunteer manager, coordinator or director
Session Level: Advanced
Session Type: Workshops
Speaker(s): Martin J Cowling
Twitter Hashtag: #Voltools
Description:
Any tradesperson has a handy set of tools which they know must carry with them. These are tools that are required no matter the job size or scope. What are the essential tools for creating and positioning a volunteer program? How do you get them or find them? When to throw out a tool?


Sabotage! How Volunteer Managers Sabotage Their Program (5493)
Wednesday, June 8, 2011 10:30 AM - 12:00 PM
Focus Area: Manage Volunteers
Target Audience: All roles
Session Level: Intermediate
Session Type: Workshops
Speaker(s): Martin J Cowling
Twitter Hashtag: #NCVS5493
Description:
“Presentation is incredible and shouldn’t be missed!!” This training is based on a series of articles published by the journal E-Volunteerism We all want to know what not to do wrong. This training aims to address the fundamental things a manager and an organisation need to do to avoid sabotaging their program. We cover: ? How Volunteer Programs are viewed ? Why perceptions of a volunteer program impacts on its success, ? How your volunteer program might be viewed by your agency ? What are the five lethal factors that can undermine programs? ? How these five lethal factors might be impacting on attendees workplaces ? Practical actions that can be taken to overcome these

Poirura

Had a fun morning presenting on Volunteer Motivation to a group of 29 leaders from the Northern part of Wellington. Thanks for a great time guys.

Cancer Sucks

My week was thrown a little when my sister was found to have a massive lump.
It has been heart wrenching.
Thank goodness for the Australian medical system which has been so thorough and helpful so far.

Monday Motivation: 16 May, 2011

What do you think? I have been feeling a theme here.

Success is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm.

Winston Churchill

In a recent tweet, Tony Robbins suggests that Walt Disney took big risks, & was nearly broke when he had a breakthrough with Snow White. This is described in an article by Swati Pandey. This experience led to the first thoughts for Disneyland.

Lost Posts

Apparently Blogger have lost all of our posts since Tuesday. They are hopefully going to get them back.
Watch this space!

My Australian National Volunteer Week

For National Volunteer Week in Australia, I am having a very busy week:

• Yesterday, I was in the Northern suburbs of Melbourne, presenting at the Hume Global Learning Village May Forum on Volunteering: challenges, trends and opportunities. 

• Today, I am in my home area hosted by Volunteering Resource Service Mornington Peninsula- looking at how to attract future volunteers

• Wednesday morning, I am looking forward to an important discussion with the City of Boroondara about what we think volunteering will look like in 2021 (IYV +20!)

• Thursday, the City of Port Philip is presenting a forum on Recruitment and Policy - and I am the forum presenter! Should be a very practical and fun session!

• Thursday night, I am involved in a virtual presentation for the Linking Learning Looking volunteer Conference in the Clarence Valley. I am presenting about "Online Tools for Volunteer Engagement". The actual session will have participants physically present in the Grafton area of New South Wales, Australia  (a region about 2000km (1200m miles) from my home) and other participants online from anywhere in the world! You can join us!

• Friday morning I head down to the second biggest city in my state: Geelong for a joint Volunteering Geelong/G21 event looking at Mega trends in Volunteering 

Saturday I am taking my nephews to the football and celebrating my second nephew's 8th Birthday.

Have a great week!

Monday Motivation; Australian Volunteer Week May 9, 2011

The theme for  the Australian National Volunteer Week: May 9 to May 15 2011 is "Inspiring the Volunteer within you"


I found this quote today and think its a perfect description of volunteering and volunteers.



Never mind searching for who you are.  Search for the person you aspire to be.  ~Robert Brault,


Thank you to all my fellow volunteers this week and every week.

I am in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA

Am excited to be back in this state for the Wisconsin Volunteer Coordinators Association state volunteering conference. I was last here four years ago. Thanks guys for believing me all this time!

The theme of the Conference is Preparing for Change. We are at the Crowne Plaza, Miluwakke Airport so the whole conference has an aeroplane theme to it.

They dont know it yet but this is the opening video:

I am very proud of this little effort.  I am not overly excited about the end of it but in the context it wont matter. We shall see how it goes down in my presentation on Preparing for Change. What do you think? Would this grab your attention at the start of a keynote? I will let you know tomorrow.

Monday Motivation 2 May 2011

How true is this?

In every failure lies the seeds of success
-Deepak Chopra