Comments for OzVPM

Comment on Time banking – volunteering or profiteering? by Sue Hine

Sue Hine — Fri, 17 May 2013 04:54:17 +0000

Lots of debate going round about terminology – an ongoing topic. Susan Ellis showed us there is no unilateral definition in her doc http://www.energizeinc.com/art/documents/Vocabulary-full1page_2011.pdf way back in 2005 at the first Australasian Retreat.

Do we say ‘anything goes’ or do we try to define the core essentials of volunteering?

Comment on Data will always give you the wrong answer when you ask the wrong question by Wendy Moore

Wendy Moore — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 21:23:47 +0000

A very interesting article Tony. So often we hear of the number of hours of volunteering as a measure of volunteer commitment to an organisation. As you point out this figure alone does not provide enough information to get a true picture of the contribution which volunteers make. Something to also consider – What about time spent with a patient providing a listening ear to someone who may not have many visitors and who may be lonely or scared and just wants someone to talk to. How do you measure that quality time?

I think that this quote highlights a very important aspect of volunteering.

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
― Maya Angelou

Comment on Data will always give you the wrong answer when you ask the wrong question by Heidi

Heidi — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 00:07:17 +0000

Thank you Tony. You’ve well-articulated the conundrum in my workplace where I believe the way to greater effectiveness and satisfaction (from volunteers and frontline volunteer managers) is to work more efficiently with less volunteers, while senior managers look to volunteer hours as an indicator of my performance. Not only are the right questions needed, but investment in systems to meet the technical requirements of measuring a range of values is needed. Settling for spurious data can side-step the need for investment. It is remarkable to me that other office holders in my organisation are held to a standard of strict accountability while the standard of management accountability applied to Coordinator of volunteers is so ‘rubbery’. I look forward to a day when this will change and articles like yours will support the case for change.

Comment on Time banking – volunteering or profiteering? by Claire Teal

Claire Teal — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 01:21:07 +0000

Hi Andy et al

I’ve got a question and a thought to add to the conversation here…

First, the question: I can’t seem to find anything anywhere about what prompted the tender process for the roll-out of this pilot. How did the NSW government come to be contemplating timebanking in the first place? Anyone know…? Was it sanctioned by the NSW community in some way (i.e. via training sessions run by volunteer centres, network discussions, etc?) I’m curious…

Secondly, I am actually really interested in timebanking and will look forward with interest to see how it goes. In my still (…mumble…) young-ish impression of the world, it fits with my evolving and fluid definition of volunteering, and I think it has lots of scope to bring more people into the widening and diversifying world that is volunteering. I also don’t have a problem with its government backing. Here in NZ, the bulk of funding for volunteer centres comes from the government, who dictates how we spend it through holding us to what we write in our funding applications. This doesn’t sound all that different to me..?

Love to hear your thoughts!
Claire

Comment on Data will always give you the wrong answer when you ask the wrong question by Vicki

Vicki — Mon, 07 Jan 2013 07:23:45 +0000

Great article Tony! Thank you for raising some interesting questions. For too long I think we have articulated hours and not the total picture.
However it does pose an interesting challenge for us all!

With some of our programs we are able to easily articulate outputs to support the hours and this has made such a difference and provdes a clearer picture of the activites undertaken.

For example our Justice of the Peace program reports not only the volunteer hours BUT the number of clients serviced and number of tranactions carried out. This enables us to clearly demonstrate that some transactions can be quite involved (eg a JP’s can be presented with a 22 pages of documentation to be witnessed).

We can also break down the data by site. This has helped us present a case for developing new services and time slots etc…. We are also experimenting with how we can record the type of document as a driver of training needs.

Comment on Time banking – volunteering or profiteering? by Mike Feszczak

Mike Feszczak — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 07:36:56 +0000

I think Time Banking is a great idea.
But, I don’t consider it to be volunteering. From what I have read this is an excellent way to barter skills outside of the business/trade sector (who have Barter Card and the like to do the same job as Time Banking).
I can see that it will provide a platform for community engagement and integration as well as some benefits detailed in other posts, and these are laudable aspects that can could be of great benefit to individuals and communities.
But there is an expectation of repayment in kind (service delivery by someone else involved). (Another kind of black market?)
I generally agree with Andy on this one.
Mike

Comment on Time banking – volunteering or profiteering? by wendy

wendy — Sun, 09 Dec 2012 22:39:26 +0000

Tme banking would be denificial in Aged Care, some organisation have up to 14 site.
The skills of volunteer could be shared, giving the volutneers the opportunity to work across all sites and the organisation the benifit of their skills.
The issue is transport, the organisation would have to provide transport but it coudl be done.
It reminds me of the barter system which was very popular in WA many years ago.