Finding

Our

Voice

Conference Programme23rd October 2013

Regus, 1 Ropemaker Walk London EC2Y 9HT (9th Floor)

Map

Programme

0930 Registrations Open Refreshments served Sign up for workshops

Conference is chaired by Rachael Bayley, Head of Volunteering, Save the Children

1000 Welcome Address Heather Baumohl Chair of Association of Volunteer Managers

UK Room Heather will provide a review of the Association during the last year and outline its

future directions.

1015 Opening address - Finding Our Voice! Fiona Dawe, CBE Consultant, Coach and Facilitator

UK Room

1030 Workshops: a) Learning from volunteers about volunteer management Helen Timbrell, Volunteering and Community Involvement Director, National Trust

UK Room In this two part session Helen first shares experiences of conducting surveys of volunteers by sharing the approach used at the National Trust. Focussing on headline results from the NT she will share the way in which these results have supported cultural change around volunteering in the organisation and driven improvements in volunteer management. The second part of the session shares learning from working with Wally Harbert, an experienced volunteer and author of Baby Boomers and the Big Society, and discusses how qualitative research with volunteers can help improve volunteer management and shape organisational thinking around volunteering.

b) Connecting, Learning, Sharing Germany Room

Sue Jones and Chris Huffee

Join Sue and Chris as they provide an overview of some of the leading networking tools for managers of volunteers; including how to make the most of the dedicated Volunteer Management weekly tweet chat and discussion known as Thoughtful Thursdays #ttvolmgrs The session will cover why it is important to connect, learn and share on-line and to help make this meaningful and relevant to your role.

c) The value of volunteer managers Rob Jackson, Independent Consultant

Argentina Room In this workshop Rob will guide you through some context about the role of leaders and managers of volunteers in the 21st century as well as give you some key facts and figures about the value VMs bring to their organisations. Through discussion in small groups you will explore how you can make the case for VMs in your organisation and consider the key actions AVMs and peers could take after today.

1140 Comfort Break and Networking Please take this opportunity to meet new colleagues.

1200 Panel Discussion – Volunteer Engagement versus Volunteer Management: have we got the emphasis right for the future? Ruth Bravery, Director of Volunteering and Community Involvement at Marie Cure Cancer Care Steven Howlett, Academic and Author of “Volunteer and the Society in the 21st Century” Tiger de Souza, Head of Volunteering at NSPCC

UK Room Chaired by Nikki Squelch, Head of Volunteering Development at the Alzheimer’s Society. Nikki will introduce the panel members and they will share their insight then we will open it up to the floor for questions, comments and reflections.

1300 Lunch UK Room: AVM AGM from 1300 to 1320 Special Lunch Session: Collecting Data, Lessons from Volunteer Counts Roger Parry, Director of Agenda Consulting.

Reception Area Argentina Room 1315 Please take you lunch

1400 Workshops: a) b) and c) repeated – same as the morning

A – UK Room B – Germany Room C – Argentina Room

1510 Comfort Break

1530 Plenary Session Chaired by Racheal Bayley

UK Room The workshop leaders will be welcomed to present the key points, issues and themes that emerged from their workshops

1600 Closing Address Heather Baumohl Official finish

UK Room

1610 - 1700

Fringe Sessions – as requested by the members who asked for a full day.

Germany Room Personalisation Agenda – a discussion lead by Nikki Squelch from the

Alzheimer’s Society to consider the impact that personal budgets and the call for

community involvement will have on volunteering. Argentina Room Defining the profession – Lead by Debbie Usiskin and Heather Baumohl When we talk about professionalisation we mean the movement towards self governance of standards and practice. Professionalisation raises standards of practice by raising the capacity of practitioners and facilitates the development of an infrastructure that fosters genuine professional development and career long enhancement of the capacities and contribution of each individual professional practitioner. By the end of this session we will have started the ball rolling and begun to lay out the principles of a code of professional practice for managers of volunteers

About our speakers and presenters

Fiona Dawe has her own consultancy, Vital Space, and is a Coach, Facilitator and Thinking Environment TM Consultant, enabling individuals, groups – indeed whole organisations, to think really well for themselves, as themselves. She is also an advisor to the Paul Hamlyn Foundation’s Social Justice Committee. Fiona’s 30 year career in the voluntary sector started by being a full-time CSV working with young offenders. She then worked at CSV, OUTSET (employment and training in IT for people with disabilities) and Volunteering England. For 11 years until April 2011, she was Chief Executive of YouthNet, the UK’s first not-for-profit dot.com, which runs TheSite.org and Do-it.org. In 2008 they won The Charity Times “Best Charity to Work For” and she firmly believes The Thinking Environment was a key success factor. Volunteering has always been central to her life and she has served on a wide variety of boards and advisory groups. Currently she is a trustee of the Windsor Leadership Trust, the Charity Technology Trust, and Changemakers. She was awarded the OBE in 2003 for services to the Voluntary Sector and the CBE for services to volunteering in the New Years Honours List 2012.

Rachael Bayley is the Head of Volunteering Development at Save the Children UK. She leads on developing the volunteering strategy, framework and culture to ensure volunteering is embedded across the whole organisation. She originally moved into the sector (from investment banking) to be Director of Service at Volunteer Reading Help. Rachael was the Director of Volunteering at CSV (Community Service Volunteers), where she led a team of 15,000 volunteers who are supported by 28 staff. Rachael has also been Director of Volunteering Development at the Alzheimer’s Society; and Head of Volunteering at Samaritans with 18,000 volunteers and 202 branches each led by volunteers – a highly successful model of volunteers managing volunteers. Rachael is also a Trustee of Barnardo's, a Director at the Association of Volunteer Managers and is training to be a qualified Pilates tutor.

Heather Baumohl is the Director of Member Involvement and Volunteering at Crohn’s and Colitis UK. She is a member of the British Society of Psychology with over 30 years experience of working with volunteers. Heather has worked with Crohn’s and Colitis UK for 12 years and has made a major contribution to the development of the Association’s activities and services. Heather is an experienced executive with a substantial track record in delivering results in the not-for-profit sector, particularly where it involves finding strategies to engage and retain volunteers. Driven by a desire to help people develop Heather volunteered in a cross cultural adult education project which culminated in a Train the Trainer programme being launched across Europe. This project was supported by the European Socrates Fund.

Helen Timbrell started her career as a volunteer manager at the age of nine as Seconder of the Gnomes in the 121st Bristol Brownie pack. Thirty two years later she is now Volunteering and Community Involvement Director at the National Trust. Helen has worked in volunteer management with Citizens Advice, RSPCA and the University of Warwick. Before joining the Trust she took three years out of paid work to complete a PhD on the geographical variations in the nature, meaning and impact of volunteering in Scotland, partly funded by Volunteer Development Scotland. Helen has volunteered as a Trustee in a number of organisations including Student Development Scotland and Platform 51. She was Chair of the Volunteer Centre for Bath and North East Somerset for a number of years and is currently on the Board of the Association of Volunteer Managers.

Sue Jones is a leader in developing training for managers of volunteers. She is excited by the emergence of informal learning networks and the role that technology can play in supporting people to connect and develop both personally and professionally. Chris Huffee is a web site designer and IT specialist. He is passionate about demystifying the way that technology works in order to support people to access on-line tools to help them connect, learn and work more effectively. They are both part of VMmovement - championing the work of volunteer managers and encouraging them to connect, learn and share ideas and resources. Find out more via www.vmmovement.org.uk and join us http://ivo.org/vmm

Rob Jackson is Director of Rob Jackson Consulting Ltd, a consultancy and training company that helps engage and inspire people to bring about change. Rob has nearly 20 years experience working in the voluntary and community sector, holding a variety of strategic development and senior management roles that have focused on leading and engaging volunteers. Rob is also an active volunteer, including serving as chair of governors for a large Lincolnshire primary school.

Ruth Bravery is Director of Volunteering and Community Involvement at Marie Curie Cancer Care. Ruth is responsible for delivery of Marie Curie’s Volunteering Strategy where the charity plans to grow its regular volunteer base to 10,000 volunteers by 2014. She is also responsible for the charity’s work around Patient, Family and Carer engagement and for ensuring the voice of people using Marie Curie’s services is heard and responded to. Ruth was previously an Assistant Director in H.M Revenue & Customs and has held a number of volunteers positions throughout her life ranging from being a Scout Leader to Trustee roles in both a national and local charity. Ruth was born and brought up in Newham and still lives and enjoys life in the East End.

A serial volunteer Tiger de Souza got his first taste of volunteer management as Sports President sabbatical at Southampton University. After completing his studies Tiger became the first National Volunteer Manager for England Netball before eventually joining v, The National Young Volunteers’ Service shortly after its launch in May 2006. Over the next five years Tiger was involved in a broad portfolio of work including programme evaluation, quality assurance, volunteer programme design and grant management. During this time Tiger also served as a trustee of Volunteering England (2005-2008), where he took a keen interest in the work on Investors in Volunteers and Employee Volunteering. He left v in 2011 to become Head of Volunteering at NSPCC where he is seeking to reimagine how volunteers are engaged by the charity. Despite over a decade of experience, Tiger feels he is still learning about how best to strategically develop volunteering, taking inspiration from the worlds of marketing, fundraising and human resource management.

Steven Howlett is Senior Lecturer in the Roehampton University Business School. He previously worked for the Institute for Volunteering Research and is the author, along with Colin Rochester and Angela Ellis Paine of Volunteering and Society in the 21st Century.

Nikki Squelch is the Head of Volunteering Development for the Alzheimer’s Society. She has a long history in community development and volunteer management. She has lead the volunteering agenda’s for two large and complex charities. Committed to good practice in the engagement of volunteers, Nikki helped develop Investing in Volunteers. She has been invited to contribute to national volunteering strategic groups, the Department of Health’s national volunteering vision and strategy, the England Volunteering Development Council’s scrutiny committee. As a founding member of AVM, she is a committed member helping to arrange learning events such as this conference.

Roger Parry is the Director of Agenda Consulting. He has worked since 1985 in the public and not-for-profit sectors as a management consultant - 8 years with PricewaterhouseCoopers and a similar period with Compass Partnership. He has worked with Boards, Chief Executives and senior managers in the following sectors: social care, housing, international development, associations and unions, central Government and Non-Departmental Public Bodies. His work focuses on human resource management, organisational change, benchmarking and board development. He publishes several innovative benchmarking studies which that compare and contrast performance in human resources and finance of around 120 medium and large Third Sector organisations annually. Internationally Roger has worked in Kenya, South Africa and in Tanzania where he started and led a new consultancy practice for PricewaterhouseCoopers for 2 years. Roger has an MBA from London Business School and a BA in Mathematics from Oxford.

Debbie Usikin is one of the founding Directors of AVM and current Vice Chair. Volunteering since the age of 14 as a swimming assistant with PHAB, Debbie is still volunteering, swimming and actively engaged in inclusivity. Whilst working as an operational manager of volunteers Debbie took an MA in Organisational Development, researching the impact of business management models on volunteer involving organisations. Having gained some senior strategic experience, Debbie now freelances with a focus on stakeholder engagement and building capacity. .Always interested in how others do this thing we call volunteer management, will do almost anything for a decent cup of coffee and always happy to meet and exchange thoughts.