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Recognition Idea
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Volunteers are Gold
For National Volunteer Week, we are having an Olympic theme - "Volunteers Are Our Gold!"
We are greeting each volunteer at the event by hanging gold medals around their necks. We are decorating in red, white, and blue and having the Olympic ring display at the front of the room. Lastly, we are having a Power Point presentation of events and volunteer pictures from the last year with a gold medal design.
- Submitted by Heather Melton, The Elizabeth Hospice
Share Your Recognition Idea
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Volunteerism Quote |
"No person was ever honored for what he received. Honor has been the reward for what he gave." - Calvin Coolidge
Share Your Quote
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Energize Volunteer Management Update February 2010
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February Hot Topic: Both Receiving and Giving
Conspicuous by their
absence in many settings are volunteers with a direct, personal connection to
the work of the organization: recipients of service, their families and
friends, or people in the immediate neighborhood of the facility. These
are the folks the staff serves, and therefore are not considered as a
source of talent themselves. Why not?
Read this Month's Hot Topic You
can subscribe to the Hot Topic as a podcast or
RSS text feed --
or listen to the audio online.
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Look Ahead to National Volunteer Week (Wherever
You Are)
April 18-24, 2010 brings National Volunteer Week to
both the United States and Canada; Australia
celebrates their Week on 10-16 May; the UK's
Volunteers' Week is the first week of June and New
Zealand's Volunteer Awareness Week is
20-26 June. You can find more information on all of these events and more at
the Energize Web site under Special Volunteerism Days and Awards. If your country's
event is missing, please give us the details so we can include it as well!
For American colleagues, HandsOn
Network has just posted
the 2010 theme and logo: Celebrating
People in Action.
Energize offers some very useful materials on
volunteer recognition, whenever you plan to show appreciation:
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Plan Now for 2010 Conferences and Retreats
The 2010 calendar is beginning to
fill - a welcome change from last year's economic panic that halted many
training events.
Coming up next month is the annual Australasian Retreat for Advanced Volunteer Management, held this year in the Adelaide Hills from March 17 to 19. This superior
event features faculty Andy Fryar, Martin J Cowling, Jayne Cravens, DJ Cronin,
and Meg Webb.
There's also
a Volunteer Management Conference in Coventry, England on 23-24
March. Susan Ellis will be the opening
speaker.
The National Conference on Volunteering and Service, the major American convocation of 4,000+
participants will be held in New York
City on June 28-30. It's co-sponsored
by the Corporation for National and Community Service and Points of Light
Institute. Note that the Advanced Volunteer Management Institute
(AVMI) has become an annual event as a pre-conference
offering and once again will feature faculty including Susan Ellis, Steve
McCurley, Betty Stallings, Martin J Cowling, and Linda Graff. For information as it emerges, go to http://www.volunteeringandservice.org/.
If this sampling of events whets
your appetite, keep checking the Energize conferences and courses listings (and post anything happening in your
area, too).
One
suggestion: A great role
for a volunteer center, HandsOn affiliate, or local volunteer management
association is to organize group
attendance at conferences at a distance.
Renting a bus or negotiating group airfare discounts saves everyone
money, offers a shared learning experience, and fosters community team spirit.
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Susan's Tip of the Month:
A
Different Slant on Valentine's Day
Valentine's Day (February 14) frequently elicits
attention to volunteers in cloyingly sweet ways. Some organizations post "we love our
volunteers" posters or ask the staff to wear badges with that message. If this isn't your style or the image you
seek, why not make use of Valentine's Day to do other things to draw attention
to volunteering?
Our Book Blog suggests the option of running a Volunteer Speed Matching event for
singles patterned on speed dating, as explained in A Toolkit for Volunteer Speed Matching by Volunteer Centre Dacorum in England.
Or you can
focus on how volunteering demonstrates the love of volunteers for your cause. Here are a few ideas:
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Hang
some large sheets of newsprint in a public spot headed, What We Love Around Here -- you can even use red hearts and other
Valentine's Day decorations. Supply markers and let everyone -- volunteers,
paid staff, even clients -- add to the list of praises.
- Do
the same thing online, maybe using a Facebook account or accumulating tweets on
Twitter.
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Put out some cookies or chocolate on Valentine's Day, along with cards asking
volunteers to identify what they most love about sharing their time and talent
with your organization. Use their
statements throughout the year in recruitment campaigns, presentations to
funders, and at the annual recognition event.
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Use
the opportunity to thank employees.
Send a Valentine's Day card to every member of staff (especially those in
clerical, maintenance, and other roles that rarely receive formal
communications) from volunteers. In their own handwriting, ask volunteers to
identify something this paid staff member has done in the past year that's
worthy of applause or a hug. Give it! (You can also have staff send similar
valentines to volunteers -- the key is to specify
why they are loved individually, rather than a general one-size-fits-all
thank you.)
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Depending
on your type of service, you might offer clients a chance to send valentines to
paid staff and/or volunteers (or, for that matter, to anyone they choose). Provide or make cards, ask volunteers to help
the clients write what they wish, and send them out, and you provide an
extra-touch service coordinated by the volunteer office.
If you do something out of the ordinary in your
organization for Valentine's Day, please share it and we'll post it on the
Energize site. Send your e-mails to i[email protected].
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About Us Energize empowers and inspires leaders of volunteers worldwide. Our specialty is creating and selecting the most relevant, innovative resources in volunteer management. We're advocates for the power of
volunteers and for the recognition of the leaders who unleash it.
Energize, Inc. 5450 Wissahickon Ave. C-13 Philadelphia PA 19144 Phone: 215-438-8342 Fax: 215-438-0434 [email protected]
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Pass It On! Pass on this update to interested
news groups and others who work with volunteers.
Material may be re-posted or
printed without additional permission, provided credit is given to Energize,
Inc., and our Web site address is included: http://www.energizeinc.com/.
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