BVSC at Volunteer Expo 2022

  • BVSC promoted Birmingham City volunteering opportunities at national Volunteer Expo Live event at the NEC on 6-7 May
  • National ‘Vision for Volunteering’ launched
  • We want to start a Birmingham City Volunteering conversation

 

BVSC attended the national Volunteer Expo Live event at the NEC on 6 -7 May to promote Birmingham City volunteering opportunities and our support to organisations working with volunteers.

Over 4000 delegates attended the event. Of the people BVSC engaged, almost half wanted to volunteer, a quarter were looking to recruit volunteers and the rest spoke to us for other reasons.

Attending several workshops, BVSC  contributed to discussions on a wide range of topics, including Social Prescribing and Volunteering; a place-based volunteering approach; community resilience and on future issues and global trends in volunteering.

We also attended the launch of ‘A Vision for Volunteering’.


A Vision for Volunteering

Ruth Leonard, Chair of the Association of Volunteer Managers (AVM) outlined volunteering’s contribution to strengthening communities and providing individuals with benefits. She said that volunteering and community engagement remains a universally strong spirit, essential to enabling support during the pandemic. Young volunteering “#iwill” ambassadors then spoke. The first raised issues of personal choice and responsibility with the hope for a “world held together by collective power”. Others spoke of the importance of valuing inclusivity and the enjoyment that comes from doing what we are good at.

The Vision for Volunteering is a new 10-year cross-sector strategy to outline the future of volunteering. Led by five partner organisations (AVM, NAVCA, NCVO, Volunteering Matters and Sport England), the vision outlines what is needed to ensure that volunteering can continue to make a big impact over the next decade and beyond.

The Vision tackles five key themes and explores how volunteering must adapt and evolve in each area by 2032:

  1. Awareness and appreciation: Volunteering is further ingrained in the collective psyche, part of everyone’s life
  2. Power: The power of volunteers and communities is recognised and supported
  3. Equity and inclusion: Volunteering is accessible and welcoming to everyone, everywhere
  4. Collaboration: Collaboration is a natural, fluid, flexible and spontaneous part of volunteering
  5. Experimentation: Experimentation should become a natural part of volunteering, not a finalised plan

The Vision is intended to be the start of a national conversation about how volunteering can navigate the challenges ahead and continue to create positive change in our communities. Organisations and individuals are being asked to make a commitment towards achieving the Vision and sign up to keep in touch at www.visionforvolunteering.org.uk

 

A Birmingham City Volunteering Conversation?

Over the next year BVSC will be considering how the national Vision for Volunteering might be translated and delivered locally. We will also think about how we might share best practice in volunteering. Throughout this, we will be looking to have conversations with the Voluntary, Community, Faith and Social Enterprise sector, and our partners from the public and private sectors, about the future of volunteering across Birmingham City.

It’s very early days in our thinking, with the Vision for Volunteering only just launched, and we’d welcome your ideas on this-  please contact [email protected]

 

Further Information