Volunteer recruitment fairs
East Sussex Childrens’ Centres are orgainsing a couple of recruitment fairs;
Wednesday 19th October, 10:30am until 12:30pm at Hillcrest Community Centre, Hillcrest Road, Newhaven, BN9 9EA
Come along and find out about volunteering opportunities in your area. Enjoy a cuppa and a chat with a variety of different organisations all looking for help.
For further information and to book a stall contact admin.HighwealdLewesHavensCCG@eastsussex.gov.uk. please address your email for attention of Catherine Robson, or call either Kate on 01273 336870 or Michelle on 01273 335100
Friday 4th November 2016, 10:00am – 12:00pm at Uckfield Civic Centre (The Green Room), Uckfield, TN22 1AE
Come along and find out about volunteering opportunities in your area.
Join us for some refreshments and a chance to talk to a variety of organisations all offering different opportunities for you from Uckfield, Heathfield, Crowborough and surrounding areas.
Hosted by High Weald Children’s Centres in partnership with Uckfield Volunteer Centre. For further information, please contact: Jennie Cole, Volunteer Coordinator, High Weald Children Centres Locality (Crowborough, Heathfield & Uckfield) on (01323) 464300 or 07557 748621
Please note these are external events and not organised by VCES. If you are are interested in finding out more, please contact the event organisers directly.
VCES group support
VCES services can be accessed locally depending on where you are based in East Sussex …
Volunteer Centre group support – advice on volunteer recruitment, support and management – is provided by VCES in collaboration with our partner CVSs, 3VA, HVA and RVA.
We have a team of people delivering these services locally and these are your local contacts for group support:
Lee Shepherd, Volunteering Development Coordinator, VCES – Lewes District and enquiries from groups with a multi-region / countywide presence, tel: 07535-992638, email: Lee.Shepherd@vces.org.uk
Groups based in the Eastbourne and Wealden areas should contact us on 01323 301 757 or info@vces.org.uk and one of partner staff team members will respond to you.
Peter Thorpe, Deputy Director, HVA – Hastings, tel: 01424-444010, email: peter@hvauk.org
Sam Stone, Community Services Coordinator, RVA – Rother, tel: 01424-217259, email: sam.stone@rva.uk.com
All these contacts provide a one-stop-shop advice service that combines CVS and VCES support.
Where advice for individuals is concerned, we direct enquirers to the Volunteers page (http://www.vces.org.uk/volunteer/now/), or check out our printed booklet (available in libraries and other public spaces countywide). Volunteer Support Officer, Jessica Boelema, also provides advice over the telephone and by email to enquirers countywide for those who need extra support. Local expert help is also available in Rye and Uckfield through our partners, RVA and UVC.
Important Changes on Do-it
The way you can advertise and market volunteering opportunities is changing and action is required by those organisations registered with Volunteer Centre East Sussex (VCES).
Please view the List of organisations registered with VCES on Do-it to see if your organisation is affected.
VCES advises organisations on how to market their opportunities in different ways (see our refreshed Quick Guide on Marketing Volunteer Opportunities). However, one of the prime ways to advertise volunteering opportunities is via the national volunteer recruitment website called Do-it. Do-it is the go to website for volunteering and is visited by thousands of people looking for available opportunities.
A new Do-it website was launched this year and this means we will be doing things differently.
The new website allows you to administer information about your organisations and your opportunities directly. This is good news – you will have more control and can do things straight away and when it suits you. You will also be able to directly respond to enquiries from potential volunteers and hopefully speed up the recruitment process.
First, you will need to register on the new Do-it website as an individual using your preferred e-mail address. Please follow the step-by-step instructions in Signing up for the First Time for further guidance. Once you have signed up to Do-it, please e-mail us at info@vces.org.uk and provide us the name and e-mail address of the staff member that is registered on Do-it. We will then assign this person as an administrator for your organisation and they will be able to:
- Add other administrators
- Enter new opportunities
- Edit existing opportunities
- Edit your organisation’s profile
- Process applications from volunteers
- Export data from Do-it
You need to take action – register and notify us before the 20th August 2015. Otherwise your opportunities will no longer appear on Do-it and you may miss out on volunteers.
More information
Do-it is managed by the national not-for-profit Do-it Trust. It’s a new website and there are still a number of functions being developed, added and improved. Please be patient. It’s an IT tool so there may be glitches. We have tested moving organisations into self-serving with a small number of groups and whilst it worked you may be the one that will experience technical problems. Don’t worry, we will do our best to liaise with Do-it to help you resolve those.
The new Do-it is very user-friendly for people seeking volunteering and it is aimed at making volunteering more accessible to a greater number of people. That is good for your organisation as more people will see your opportunities. It also allows you to create a better profile page for your organisation to make it visually attractive for those seeking volunteering.
Help is at hand
Please browse this site where we have prepared a number of easy to follow, step-by-step guides to help you use Do-it successfully.
If you have questions please follow the attached instructions in the first instance. If you need further assistance or are unsure about the process, please contact us either via e-mail at info@vces.org.uk
Volunteers in Action
We celebrated Volunteers’ Week 2015 by putting together a little slideshow that features just a few of the thousands of amazing volunteers in East Sussex.
Thanks to the organisations that submitted photos of their volunteers!
Case studies wanted!
Volunteer Centre East Sussex is looking to boost its stock of volunteer case studies to help promote volunteering in the county, demonstrate the variety of roles available and acknowledge the contribution that volunteers make in our communities. We would like to collect as many different kinds of case studies as we can to use in media pieces, on our website, in our publications and in our display materials.
This is a great opportunity for you to raise the profile of your organisation and its activities, celebrate your volunteer contribution and even attract more volunteers to your team.
And the case studies are easy to write! We provide the volunteer with a short list of questions and by the time these are answered, the case study is almost complete. All we need then is a photograph and a few words from you about how your volunteer makes a difference and it’s done! So, would one of your volunteers like to appear as one of our case studies? If yes, please contact Jessica Boelema, Volunteer Support Officer at info@vces.org.uk to make this happen.
For inspiration, please have a look at some of our existing case studies.
Involving disabled people in volunteering
The Disability Action Alliance are a national body made up of individuals and organisations who have a vested interest in disability issues.
They created a Volunteer Charter with the aim of increasing the number and range of volunteering opportunities available to disabled people.
Possability People and Volunteer Centre East Sussex are working together to identify and promote accessible volunteering opportunities in East Sussex.
If you have opportunities that are open to disabled people please contact; Lee.Shepherd@vces.org.uk to find out about signing up to the DAA Charter and promoting your opportunities.
If you would like to find out more about what we mean by accessible volunteering and to find out about what support is available to increase your accessibility please contact; katharine@possabilitypeople.org.uk
Alternatively, you can call; 01323 301 757.
We look forward to hearing from you.