Category: Organisations

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Spotlight: Kingston Buddy Scheme

What does your organisation do? 

The Kingston Buddy Scheme is a befriending project which matches volunteers with a buddy who has learning disabilities or autism. The scheme has been running for over 20 years and has been a positive experience for many dozens of service users and volunteers alike. Great, lasting friendships have been formed.

Why do you want to involve volunteers in your organisation? 

Volunteers who can spare a few hours a month to meet their buddy are the lifeblood of our scheme – we cannot function without our volunteers and we are hugely appreciative of everything they do and bring to our scheme.

What volunteer role/s do you have available? 

We need volunteer befrienders who can spare a few hours a month to take their buddy out to leisure activities which they might otherwise not be able to attend. We provide full training for our volunteers and we reimburse their expenses.

Find out more and apply here!

What advice would you give to someone considering volunteering for your organisation? 

Do it! Our scheme is so rewarding for our volunteers. You will make a huge difference to your buddy’s life and you will gain great life experiences along the way.

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Spotlight: Volunteering with Dyscover

Dyscover charity - supplied image

Thinking about volunteering in Kingston? Find out more about local organisations and their volunteering opportunities with our Spotlight series!

What does your organisation do in Kingston? 

For almost 30 years, Dyscover has been providing long term support and opportunity to people with aphasia and their families. Aphasia is a neurological condition, acquired through stroke, brain injury or a rare form of dementia and is very isolating and frustrating. Aphasia affects a person’s communication, including their ability to find words, construct sentences and understand language, both written and spoken. 

We work to inform, support, and empower people with aphasia to manage their communication disability and to re-engage with life. We create an aphasia friendly environment in which people feel included, valued, and have a sense of purpose. 

Daily sessions are led by professional speech and language therapists, supported by a team of volunteers, and designed to help people adjust to living with aphasia. We help our members to develop strategies for communicating, maximise abilities and provide help and support for partners, carers, and other family members. 

Dyscover charity - supplied image

Why do you want to involve volunteers in your organisation? 

Volunteers are an integral part of Dyscover, making up 80% of our team and we could not provide our crucial services without their support.

What volunteer role/s do you have available? 

We are looking for new volunteers to join the team at our Kingston group. Volunteers support our members (who have aphasia) in a structured and therapeutic conversation group with Speech and Language Therapists. The group is designed to help our members adjust to life with aphasia, develop different communication strategies and regain confidence. 

Who are you looking for? 

We look for friendly, positive individuals keen to learn about aphasia and want to make a real difference to our members. No previous experience of working with people with disabilities is needed as full training and ongoing support are provided. 

When & where?

Kingston Quaker Centre on Tuesdays at 9.30am-12.30 (term time only)

What advice would you give to someone considering volunteering for your organisation? 

If you are considering volunteering with Dyscover, you can chat with our Volunteer Coordinator and arrange to go along and see the group in action which is the best way to learn more about what we do and how our volunteers support our members. We are a very friendly and welcoming team. Our volunteers tell us that it is a hugely rewarding role and that they really get so much from volunteering with us.

Dyscover charity - supplied image

Find out more and apply for this role!

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Celebrating Volunteering and Discovering the Power of Giving

National Volunteers Week (June 1st-June 7th, every year) was a tremendous success, and here at Volunteering Kingston, we are constantly reminded of the invaluable contributions of volunteers. We believe in spreading this celebratory spirit to all organizations engaging with their communities.  

That’s why we’re thrilled to extend a warm invitation to the upcoming Discover Volunteering in Kingston event, set to take place on Thursday, July 20th, at the vibrant All Saints Church in Kingston, from 6pm to 8pm. 

The Discover Volunteering in Kingston event, inspired by the previous year’s Big Thank You gathering, is designed for everyone eager to explore local volunteering opportunities and express gratitude to those already making a difference. This event is a collaborative effort with partners like The Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames, Kingston Hospital, Kingston University, Kingston Voluntary Action, The Kingston Pound Project, and many others, all contributing to its planning. With such fantastic support, we hope to welcome a remarkable number of residents to join in on the festivities. 

What can you expect at the event? It will be an exciting multi-layered affair, including: 

  • A Volunteer Fair, showcasing selected volunteering-involving projects 
  • Networking over tea 
  • Heartwarming entertainment, with singing performances 
  • An inspiring sewing corner exhibition run by refugees 
  • A unique volunteering exchange tree 
  • A keynote speech by the esteemed Leader of Kingston Council, Cllr Kirsch 
  • Plus, we’re still working on other fantastic surprises! 

The best part? This event is entirely free to attend! We can’t wait to see you there! 

Let us know you’re coming by clicking the Eventbrite link here: bit.ly/DiscoverVolunteeringinKingston. 

Join us in July 2023 for a day of joy, connection, and the celebration of volunteering in the beautiful community of Kingston! 

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Discover Volunteering in Kingston Event – Everyone Welcome!

Volunteering event in Kingston

Are you interested in volunteering, but just don’t know where to start? Join us and discover the amazing opportunities available in Kingston!

Whether you’re looking to give back to your community, gain new skills, or meet new people, Kingston has something to suit you.

There are so many ways you can make a difference, so join us for the chance to meet with local charities and organisations and learn about the different ways you can get involved from the people who know best.

All are welcome, so come along and discover how you can get involved and make a positive impact in Kingston!

To register your interest in attending, please reserve a spot via our Eventbrite page.

Date: 20th July 2023

Location: All Saints Church Market Place Kingston upon Thames KT1 1JP

Cost: Free

Time: 18:00 – 20:00

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National Volunteers’ Week: Guidance pack for VIOs

Volunteers’ Week is a national campaign which takes place between 1-7 June every year. It’s a chance to recognise the fantastic contribution volunteers make to our communities and say thank you.

Volunteers’ Week is supported and celebrated by small grassroots organisations as well as larger, household-name charities, who together run hundreds of activities across the UK. These activities showcase and celebrate volunteers and the contribution volunteering makes to our communities. As a Kingston Volunteer Involving Organisation, we’re asking you to join us in thanking and celebrating the brilliant volunteers giving their time across our borough.

We have created this organisation campaign pack to support you with communications and volunteer engagement through NVW2023. You will find advice and recommendations for ways to give thanks to your volunteers, including social media templates. We hope you find it useful!

Download our guidance pack here: National Volunteers’ Week Organisation Campaign Pack

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Volunteering over Christmas, from a younger heart. 

Volunteers

I don’t know about you but I can’t think of a Christmas that has had so little joy in the build-up (and I consider the two Covid pandemic Christmas’s). A combination of war in Europe, the cost of living, the state of play with the climate, and even the weather with the recent cold spell seem to be inviting us to have a pessimistic outlook on the festivities. You could say there is no point fighting reality or you could, as I’m about to suggest, think of things from the heart and let that bring a glimmer of joy to the end of 2022. 

Christmas is always an interesting time for volunteering and volunteers. It is during this period that society notices the contribution of volunteers and the voluntary sector the most. The massive efforts put in to ensure rough-sleepers get some relief. The reaching out to the lonely and isolated. The collecting of items to pass on to children who have very little. The food banks bulging with generosity being distributed widely (too widely for a first world country in the 21st century, some would say) to families in need. All these things can be seen and they remind us that we still have a population that wishes to contribute and assist. 

It is also a tradition that people offer themselves up quite at this time of year, engaging in the volunteering activities listed above: a sign that the spirit and drive of volunteering lives on regardless of the harsh realities of the year that is ending. This annual influx of volunteers is made possible by the meticulous organisation and preparation of homeless shelters, toy banks, food banks and befriending schemes. All of them need to plan months in advance to ensure volunteers are trained and DBS checked.  

If there is one part of 2022 that lifts my spirits it is the age demographic change that has taken place. Understandably there has been a noticeable drop in the cohort we used to call “time rich” (retired in old money) since the pandemic. Usually, this would be a cause for concern but actually what has happened is a younger cohort, one we were struggling to connect with pre-Covid, has stood up to more than compensate for the decline in older volunteers. This is a development that raises spirits across the age demographic, even the most jaundiced of volunteer managers will be heartened by this development. 

Of course, if we can persuade those with extensive life experience back into volunteering we would have the best of both worlds. Combining the enthusiasm of the young with the knowledge of the old. Imagine the successful delivery of all the vital tasks needed over Christmas and New Year and the goals that could be achieved this time next year. Volunteering is being reinvigorated by the young who are putting their hearts into it, that for me provides more to look forward to than any lack of enthusiasm generated by the headlines. Christmas 2022 can be enjoyed and all of us at Volunteering Kingston wish you all the joy there is for the festive period.  

 

By Michael Green

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The importance of looking forward

All the challenges of the last few weeks have rather counter-intuitively generated a sense of ambition within the Voluntary and Community Sector that also motivates volunteers. Respect for and contribution to local communities is now wider, it is more action-orientated and has more traction than that bygone age called 2019.

Looking at Kingston as a borough, how it performed, came together, and responded to challenges (lockdowns, needs, vaccinations, new levels of poverty previously hidden etc.) gives us a clear picture of how important it is to maintain and build on the partnerships and successes of our collective work. That includes the volunteer experience. To get there I have laid out a wish list, but first, a caveat: this list is what a possible future could look like albeit relying heavily on reasonable funds, resources and partnerships to make it a reality and success. The purpose of promoting these possibilities is to invite comments and stimulate alternative suggestions.

  • Hubs, e.g. in pubs/shops/community spaces. Take a model of community space as promoted in the 2021 report on Surbiton Resilience “Every-day life in Surbiton” and replicate where practicable across the borough. Volunteers are attracted to helping in their micro-local locations, this would be a brilliant stimulus to that.
  • Food Heroes. Embed the foodbank street collection system that sprung up locally during the pandemic into the fabric of the borough so that it survives and thrives going forward
  • Time-bank/Skills exchange. Create a borough-wide system with a focus on stimulating volunteering in women whose first language is not English. This would both increase volunteering numbers and be a massive boon to the volunteer experience of a significantly socially isolated part of our community.
  • “Friends of” groups. Expand existing groups for parks/open land/under-utilised green spaces, which is being demonstrated by successful models in other localities. Friends of groups tend to tap into individuals not engaged in their communities already.
  • Bringing together a range of volunteer-led sporting activities/clubs under one banner that stimulates physical activity. Sports volunteering could add so much positive value to public health campaigns. This model could equally apply to the local smaller arts and culture groups.
  • Kingston Stronger Together Hub. Evolve it into a Kingston Council funded “Sustainable Volunteering” Hub, requiring both the Council and partners to be involved. Sustainability projects for volunteering by definition will change the borough landscape positively.
  • A social action portal. Create a web-based interface that advertises all social action activities locally no matter how small/micro in nature. This would be really helpful in attracting younger people to activities.

This list is not definitive, as they say, “other pipe-dreams are available” but I commend them to your thinking if, like us at Volunteering Kingston, re-imaging the Volunteer Experience is important to you.

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Nothing about us without us – the importance of involving disabled volunteers

Then Barbara met Alan

Many people will have seen the recent programme on the BBC, Then Barbara Met Alan, which explores the history of the disability rights movement and the phrase ‘Nothing about us without us’. It highlights the importance of disabled people living their own lives and the patronising attitudes that charities can have towards disabled people.

What do you think of when you think of a disabled volunteer?

  • A teenager with a learning disability looking for work experience.
  • An autistic parent who wants to use their perspective to help families with autistic children.
  • A wheelchair-using CEO who wants to give their business expertise to help struggling charities tackling food poverty.
  • A person with an anxiety disorder who wants to meet new people and make friends.
  • A marketing executive with chronic asthma who wants to join an environmental campaign.
  • A visually impaired accountant who wants to volunteer as they’ve been told it will help them get a promotion.
  • A deaf student who volunteers at a charity shop because they’re obsessed with vintage fashion.

Disabled volunteers volunteer for as many different reasons as non-disabled volunteers. Take our volunteering service in Waltham Forest, for instance, 13% of volunteers self-declare as disabled or say that they need additional support. That’s a lot of volunteers who are excited to give their time.

If you think of disabled volunteers as one type of person or with one set of needs, then you’ll be missing out on a lot of talent, enthusiasm and perspectives.

For organisations that want to involve disabled volunteers, here are some top tips:

  • Learn about the social model of disability and challenge your thinking about where the limits of disabilities are. For example, when you see someone wearing glasses do you think of them as ‘disabled’?
  • Take care that you use modern, up-to-date language. See this guide for some suggestions.
  • Look carefully at the required skills and experiences for your volunteering roles – what is essential and what is a ‘nice to have’. If you have an autistic volunteer who does not use the phone, but would be excellent at other parts of the role, consider making adaptations.
  • Consider having versions of your role descriptions in large print, audio recording, BSL interpretation and Easy Read form.
  • Provide information for others to make decisions, rather than deciding for them. So, if your building has a step, do not say “not accessible to wheelchair users” but rather “there is an 8cm step”. The volunteer can then decide for themselves.
  • Allow volunteers to give their time from home if possible.
  • Consider, if able, providing travel expenses for taxis.
  • Use disabled people to stock recruitment photos.
  • Money is tight, but when making funding applications consider how you can ask for things that make you more accessible and inclusive.
  • Be willing to have an honest and open conversation about disability and the needs of your volunteers.
  • Accept that sometimes a volunteer’s disability may mean things take longer or are done in different ways.
  • Have a clear code of conduct which lays out clear expectations. Do not tolerate abuse or discriminatory ‘jokes’.
  • Get in touch for specialist support and advice (emails below): Waltham Forest (Legends of the Forest), Volunteering Barnet, or Volunteering Kingston

If you are disabled and interested in volunteering, we’d love to hear about your experiences and how we can improve our service. Please get in touch with one of Groundwork London’s volunteering services: Waltham Forest (Legends of the Forest) – wflegends@groundwork.org.uk, Volunteering Barnet – enquiry@volunteeringbarnet.org.uk, or Volunteering Kingston – enquiry@volunteeringkingston.org.uk.

 

Molly Sweeney, Volunteer Development Coordinator – Legends of the Forest

 

You can find out more about how you can get involved in this year’s Volunteers ’Week on the official page here.

In the meantime, if you are looking to volunteer and start a new exciting journey today, you can discover all our available roles below:

Volunteering Kingston

Legends of the Forest, Waltham Forest

Volunteering Barnet

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The Future of Volunteering

Volunteers together

When thinking about the future of volunteering, honestly, I get quite excited. This isn’t just because I work in this sector, or because I am a volunteer myself, it’s because I have started to see a greater understanding and appreciation for volunteers over the last few years.

The pandemic changed a lot of things for a lot of people, come of which is overwhelmingly positive. A stronger sense of community and supportive environment blossomed, supporting those most in need and this, for me, is the true beauty of volunteering. So many people who potentially hadn’t been touched by the world of volunteering saw how powerful it really is. People who had never previously needed to access services supported by volunteers soon came to rely on them.

Volunteers delivered food to houses across the nation and many organisations developed befriending services to speak to those who were isolated with no contact or company. Even if you didn’t directly come across volunteers in the pandemic, you will have known someone who did, seen them on the news or heard about them from one of your neighbours. Volunteers became an essential part of the community during the pandemic, something that I see living on now.

People who had never volunteered before but wanted to help, who may have been furloughed and had new time on their hands, took to supporting vaccination centres and developed what I like to call the ‘buzz’ that is volunteering. I think if you have ever volunteered you will understand what I mean by that; the joy that you feel. The sense of fulfilment and community that surrounds you can never be replicated. When volunteering myself or speaking to volunteers, there is rarely a grumble or a moan about the hot day, the need to stay just that little bit longer or the sometimes not so exciting sandwiches. Volunteers give their time because they want to. Being a part of something bigger excites and intrigues them which creates this amazing bubble of wonderful characters.

The pandemic has shown us the full power of volunteering. Many individuals have fallen in love with it, while others have continued to do what they have always done. This excitement and drive to volunteer is still evident, people have seen and felt the benefits not only for themselves but for those around them. As more people work from home, change careers, and have new priorities, now couldn’t be a better time to dip your toes into volunteering. Volunteering offers new skills and experiences, increased confidence and the opportunity to help put a smile on someone else’s face.

I am excited to see where this new energy behind volunteering goes and I look forward to meeting so many new and exciting characters along the way.

Thank you to all of those who supported efforts throughout the pandemic, and before! And best of luck to all those joining this amazing community of people.

 

Parker Hollants, Volunteer Officer – Legends of the Forest

 

You can find out more about how you can get involved in this year’s Volunteers ’Week on the official page here.

In the meantime, if you are looking to volunteer and start a new exciting journey today, you can discover all available roles through Groundwork London’s volunteering services below:

Volunteering Kingston

Legends of the Forest, Waltham Forest

Volunteering Barnet

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The importance of celebration in a troubled time

Volunteers Week 2022

This year, National Volunteers’ Week (1-7 June) coincides with an extended celebration of the 70th year on the throne of Queen Elizabeth II. Manifesting itself with a four-day bank holiday weekend, the country will no doubt dig deep into its reserves of unity to ensure a celebratory mood. Not only this, but these events have fallen in the month of June, which is dedicated to celebrating Communities.

National Volunteers’ Week (NVW) is all about gratitude and so it should be. If ever there was “a time to say thanks”, the theme of this year’s NVW, to volunteers and the groups that come together in our communities, it is now. The contribution of volunteers has ensured our society remained functioning over the past two years of peaks and troughs.

The thought of celebrating may not be appealing right now, while the demand for foodbanks reaches a new peak, being positive whilst millions of displaced Ukrainians look for safety and money is tighter than usual. Personally, whilst I understand this thinking, I believe greater hurdles calls for a greater need for trumpet blowing. June 2022 and the co-incidence of NVW, Communities Month and the Jubilee is one such occasion.

Groundwork London’s volunteering services in the London Boroughs of Kingston, Barnet and Waltham Forest will be celebrating National Volunteers’ Week to show our appreciation to volunteers who have dedicated their time and effort to support their communities. We are working with others to ensure “a time to say thanks” continues later into the month. Events will be held in each Borough to not only mark our appreciation but to be central in strengthening bonds that bind individual volunteers, volunteer-involving organisations and the statutory sector locally. Keep your eyes peeled it will be celebratory and if circumstances allow, fun.

 

You can find out more about how you can get involved in this year’s Volunteers ’Week on the official page here.

In the meantime, if you are looking to volunteer and start a new exciting journey today, you can discover all our available roles through Groundwork London’s volunteering services below:

Volunteering Kingston

Legends of the Forest, Waltham Forest

Volunteering Barnet