How is it National Volunteers Week already!?
I returned a whole month ago now from maternity leave and it has been lovely coming back to a new, larger volunteer centre team with so much energy and enthusiasm. There is so much going on with new projects up and running providing support to local people to kick start their volunteering journey and lots of exciting opportunities in the pipeline.
Volunteer week has come around very quickly so it has been all hands on deck to get the word out there to encourage local organisations to champion their volunteers as well as promoting our new Facebook presence. We have now launched our online #helpieselfiechallenge why not get involved and embrace the challenge!
Here's the proof that I have led by example!
To kick start the campaign I roped in MVDA staff to take part and was pleasantly surprised with the positive response and more so with hearing about all the helpful things the staff team are getting up to regularly outside of work. Mark suggested tagging on to the end of his meeting at Middlesbrough Council to see if we could 'strongly encourage' their staff members to get involved and what a great idea this was! Not only did we get some great snaps and find out about the great things they are getting up to but it was interesting to hear the first response of most people... 'I haven’t done anything'. This then lead to a brief conversation where they shared the 101 helpful things they do without realising they were necessarily being helpful because it was things that they just did without thinking. This ranged from litter picking on the beach to providing support to a friend in need. This made me think about all the people I have met, in my role as Volunteer Development Officer for Ageing Better Middlesbrough, and how they have often already been volunteering informally but didn’t recognise it as volunteering. The helpie selfie challenge is the perfect tool for helping people and organisations to recognise all the positive contributions local people make to their friends, family and community.
Picture of MVDA staff and Middlesbrough Council staff embracing the challenge. Including Mark Davis, CEO of MVDA (top left) and Eric Scollay, Director of Social Care (bottom right).
So, please get behind our Facebook campaign and accept the challenge today; start sharing your contributions and the contributions of your volunteers and don't forget to use the hash tag: #helpieselfiechallenge.
Kelly Hodgson
MVDA
We Care You Care Project Lead