‘Making volunteer teams work for you’ – ELBA hosts community training
In the run up to Volunteers’ Week 2016 in June, ELBA has been supporting community organisations by providing training in best practise when it comes to managing teams of corporate volunteers. The training is designed for those who are new to volunteer management. Now in it’s fourth year, the training has developed to include skills-based, as well as hands-on, volunteer groups.
This year’s training; ‘Making volunteer teams work for you’, was developed and co-hosted by Pat Macantsionnaigh and Arnold Mahoney, Senior Play Workers at Evergreen Adventure Playground, alongside Emily Franklin from ELBA.
The training, which was attended by over 20 organisations, started off with discussions around what corporate volunteering is and what makes a good volunteering experience. The session looked at essential pre-planning aspects, how to cost a project suitably and what corporate groups typically are able to carry out in terms of tasks and cover in terms of costs. The ‘on the day’ planning was looked at too with a discussion around things to be included in the briefing and what can be expected from volunteers. We looked at the expectations from each party for all aspects of the planning and delivery of the day; the volunteers, the community contact and ELBA. There was time for a quick Q&A session before the delegates had a tour of Evergreen Adventure Playground to see what volunteers had done there. The morning training ended with some informal networking over lunch.
The feedback from the attending delegates was very positive with 94% saying it improved understanding of what team volunteering is and confidence in delivering volunteering days. 88% said it gave them project ideas and useful tips to improve project days. 94% found it a great networking opportunity.
Delegates reported ‘meeting other organisations’, ‘gaining clarity about the responsibilities the community has over volunteers’ and ‘planning for briefing’ as just some of their key learnings from the day.
ELBA runs training events regularly, if you are interested in benefiting from training for your organisation, please contact Emily Franklin: emily.franklin@elba-1.org.uk.
