It’s that time of year again: Volunteering England’s Student Volunteering Week 2012 is happening from 20^th – 26^th Feb. Its presence will be most noted on campus as the Volunteering & Community Engagement team will have a ‘self-service’ stall in the foyer of University Place.

Here you will find an abundance of information on how to get involved in volunteering, with pamphlets detailing loads of volunteering opportunities and information on a range of different organisations.

Most notably, there will be a very large inflatable world globe floating around the stall. The globe will give students the chance to publicise the voluntary work they have done around the world so far.

The concept is simple: pick up a sticker, stick it on the globe, and tell the world what you have done! It’s cheesy, but we love it.

Last year fellow students nominated Carly for the Social Responsibility and Volunteer of the Year Awards, in recognition of the difference she is making to so many lives.  As winner, Carly also became the recipient of the University Social Responsibility Award, which is part of the President’s annual Distinguished Achievement Awards.

Other winners’ projects have included being a mentor in a Manchester school with ReachOut!, running Student Action projects, running social enterprise projects with SIFE, setting up development projects for students and working with a group older people in Manchester to reduce isolation.

Do you know someone who makes a difference?

Nominations are now open for 2012, recognising students, staff and alumni who give time and energy helping disadvantaged groups in the community locally, nationally and overseas.

Each winner will receive a cheque for their chosen organisation.  In addition the overall winner in each category will be put forward for the University Social Responsibility Award, which is part of the President’s annual Distinguished Achievement Awards.

The closing date is 23rd March 2012.

For more information and to nominate go to www.manchester.ac.uk/volunteeroftheyear. 

Compared to the previous year, three charities had significant income increase in their shops over the Christmas period.

For the 5 week period up to 31^st December 2011, Oxfam today announced that their sales were up 11 per cent compared with the same time period in 2010. They said that for some products, such as home ware and clothing, sales were up nearly 25 per cent.

However, ironically, Oxfam noted a serious decline in donations to its shops in the past year. A spokeswoman said, “We tend to do well when it’s a tough economic climate, but donations go down because people hold on to old stuff.”

Similarly, a spokeswoman for Age UK reported that its shops had a 21 per cent increase in sales in December compared to the previous year. She said, “Nevertheless, stock remains the single most important issue facing our Age UK shops.”

British Red Cross experienced an increase in sales in the Christmas period of 2011 compared to 2010. A spokeswoman said it was tricky to attribute this increase to a particular factor because of heavy snowfall in December 2010 and also because the charity’s shops had hosted events in the run-up to Christmas in 2011.

The report highlights the irony of shoppers’ requirements – in our current climate consumers are in greater need for charity shops (what with their bargain finds), and yet the stock seems to be diminishing.

It draws attention to the importance of charity shops and the catch-22 situation some charity shops may face if this trend is to expand on a larger scale – how can a charity shop increase its sales if it has no stock to sell? It seems like a very risky game of tug-of-war.

Have been meaning to blog for a number of days, but it’s been a busy week here at the volunteering and community engagement HQ, of discussions surrounding Student Volunteer Week 2012, The Great Fundraise and Speed Matching (all will be revealed soon), amongst other things.

We’re trying to get as many opportunities as ‘volunteeringly’ possible set up for you all so that when you’ve completed your exams (or during…); you’ll find an array of possibilities to get involved with.

Over the next few weeks the blog will be coming to you with loads of useful information on our upcoming volunteering events, so keep an eye out for further information on how to get involved.

That’s all for now folks.

Good luck! In your exams/coursework coming up in the next few weeks, from all of us at the Volunteering and Community Engagement team.

There’s a wide selection of volunteering opportunities to get stuck into over the Christmas period, ranging from hosting a radio show, putting on a Christmas panto, supermarket bag packs, fixing bikes and many, many more.

Volunteering your time over Christmas is a great way to make your season of goodwill count towards something worthwhile. Not only that, but you’ll be making someone else’s Christmas a whole lot better.

So come on, banish any sense of Scrooge you may have, and see what a difference you can make this Christmas.

Opportunities include:

• Marie Curie Cancer Care - They desperately need fundraisers to do supermarket collections, accepting donations from customers.

Shifts available from: 10^th – 21^st Dec, and can be in 2 hour shifts

Contact: michelle.bate@mariecurie.org.uk

• Openshaw Resource Centre - The centre would like students to put on a Christmas show for its service users! They’re looking for performers to make this happen.

Wednesday 14^th Dec 12-4pm

Contact: carol.gallagher@manchester.ac.uk / 0161 275 2828

• Openshaw Resource Centre - Festive radio DJs needed!  Looking for chatty volunteers to present a radio show (on their own or in pairs).

Shifts available from: 16th Dec – 27th Jan, on a Monday or Friday

Contact: carol.gallagher@manchester.ac.uk / 0161 275 2828

• Together Trust - Volunteers needed to ‘man’ the end of supermarket tills, pack customers’ bags in return for dona­tions.

Shifts: 19^th- 21^st Dec, Swinton, Manchester

Contact: susie.smith@togethertrust.org.uk / 0161 2834883

• Student Action hosts a variety of volunteering opportunities with many projects across Manchester and they have loads over the Christmas period. These include:

Home Work Club @ Willow Bank - 12^th December:

A chance to help the children at Willow Bank with all their homework. Sessions are from 18:30 to 19:30 and will include homework and educational games or activities.

Biko Bikes – 13-15^th December

Refurbishing old bikes left behind by the university. The restored bikes are repainted and then turned to good use as the first Manchester Bike Pool!

Women’s Shelter – 7^th, 13^th 14^th December

The project involves preparing an evening meal and running various activities at a local refuge for homeless women.

***Check the website for new opportunities – updated weekly!***

For all opportunities contact:  www.umsu.manchester.ac.uk/action   / Prabina: action@umsu.manchester.ac.uk

Make your season of goodwill count this year: volunteer.

You made a massive impact on the organisations we worked with last week, and more importantly your individual input had such a big impact on the local community which is, aside from being what Operation Impact is about, fantastic.

For those who weren’t involved, and want to find out more, read on!

Operation Impact is a mass-scale MLP volunteering scheme in which over 160 students took part in three projects in the local community over four days with the intent to transform each project. And my, what a transformation!

There were

• 163 places taken up by student volunteers across the week

This meant

• 955 hours counted towards MLP awards

This equated to

• £4755.90 monetary value to the community

In summary:

Day one:

The children of Birchfields Primary School now benefit from a renovated eco-garden. This involved building planters and bulbs ready for spring, painting the school wigwam (naturally), in order to match all the log seats that the MLP volunteers painted.

‘Team Pond’ (as they were so lovingly dubbed) had a great time looking extremely attractive in their waist-high waders. The girls spent all day up to their waists in pond water – lifting and rearranging logs, clearing out debris. They carried off the look well, and because of them, the pond is now wildlife accessible.

All this was done with some help from the eager pupils at the school, and was complicated ever so slightly by the school’s rabbits, whose inquisitiveness soon turned shy as we kept cooing into their cage…

Day two and three:

Scouts, Cubs, Beavers, community groups and after-school clubs who use the 1^st Withington Scout Hut in Withington now have a brightly coloured venue. But we didn’t stop there. Their garden was transformed with planters being built, a level green area for camping, the outside walls being painted, and lots more.

The MLP scaffold team were brilliant at shaking off any vertigo and working to paint the approximately 6 metre high ceiling with a double-coat of Magnolia. Creating banners and polishing Scout memorabilia were also thrown into the agenda.

It was only a shame that we couldn’t do more – the skirting boards and scout leaders room still needs a bit of TLC so watch this space to ‘scout’ out volunteering opportunities for this project.

What made this project even more worthwhile, were the centenary events happening at the Scout Hut the following weekend. It was hard, but we made sure the hut was ready for these celebrations so that former scout members (some aged over 80) who were travelling from all over the country could see the impact MLP had achieved. This new community hub wouldn’t have been possible without the MLP manpower, and of course lots and lots of cups of tea!

Len Grant, Chair of 1st Withington Scout Group, was impressed with the efforts of MLP:

“Thank you for the wonderful work of Operation Impact last week, the students worked extremely hard and conscientiously and achieved so much in only two days. The scout hut looked tremendous for our Centenary Open Day.   And there was so much positivity about the students’ efforts.”

Day four:

The residents of Winifred Massey have benefitted from a new herb and berry garden, new painted benches, and a mass-scale gardening and de-weeding project. There was hanging baskets, hot drinks and Hotpot a plenty, the latter two keeping us going through the day. The man power involved in the extreme gardening of the day has definitely warranted a no need for the gym attitude here in the office, and we would urge you do the same!

Finally, we hope everyone involved on Friday didn’t have a “crap” time because of the manure… worryingly towards the end of the day I could no longer smell it on me, much to the delight of the person sat next to me on the bus. Oops.

Well done again everyone! And watch this space for OPERATION IMPACT round two, coming next semester.

As discussed in the article published on October 14^th, ‘David Cameron promises to triple National Citizen Services places by 2014.’

Having been fortunate enough to work for the largest pilot provider, The Challenge Network, in summer 2011, I can reveal that expansion plans are already under way and Cameron has provided enough funding for almost triple the amount of young people, commonly referred to as ‘Challengers’, to take part in the program in the North West in 2012.

In summer 2011, The Challenge ran the National Citizen Service for young people living within Blackburn, Bury, Preston and Wigan. Over 9 weeks of the summer, 540 Challengers took part in the 3 week programme, which saw them completing a range of challenges, from Climbing Mount Snowdon to delivering coaching sessions to asylum seekers in Wigan, who felt isolated from their community.

Just as my employment with The Challenge finished at the beginning of October 2011, The Challenge received conformation that they had been backed by Government to provide the National Citizen Service for all the boroughs within Greater Manchester, excluding Trafford, in the summer of 2012.

Therefore  there will be 1440 places on the programme throughout the Northwest, demonstrating that Cameron’s promise to triple National Citizen Service places by 2014 is well on its way to being achieved.

Some may argue that the funding for this initiative could be spent on established community projects that are suffering following austerity cuts. However, The Challenge has developed a very unique program, which unlike any other provides Challengers who complete the programme, with an opportunity to carry on making an impact and volunteering in their community through Challenge Action Days, once the summer program has finished.

I was lucky enough to work as a senior mentor with two teams who completed The Challenge, and believe that the opportunities The Challenge gives young people really encourages them to think about how they can make a difference in their communities. In the final week of The Challenge, I took my team to a Homeless Shelter in Blackburn.

We met with members, some the same age as The Challengers, who shared their stories regarding how the Shelter’s rehabilitation service had helped them. Together, The Challengers and service users devised a fundraising event, which would see them live homeless for the day and go without food. The challengers carried this out after their visit and raised £600 for the shelter.

The opportunity provided them with the chance to meet people they may never have crossed paths with otherwise, breakdown stigmas attached to young people and homeless people, and take ownership of a project that would make a real difference. After this visit, one of The Challengers told me he was inspired to start his own charity in the future, which was extremely touching.

As the title suggests, the increase in places on The Challenge programme has benefits for students as well as Challengers, especially those completing MLP. I was lucky enough to secure a job working as a senior mentor, responsible for a less experienced mentor and a team of 12 Challengers. I believe that my success in gaining this role was largely down to the experience I gained working in a voluntary capacity for Action for Children prior to applying.

Applications for summer roles will open in February 2012, and in the North West, The Challenge Network is likely to need approximately 250 paid summer staff and volunteers to run its fantastic programme.

I urge fellow MLP students to work on the Challenge if working with young people appeals to them. The work does involve keeping your eye on the ball for 18 hours a day during the residential part of the programme, however getting paid to climb mountains, canoe, rock climb, work with lots of charities doing a great job and see young people inspired to make a difference in their communities, definitely makes up for this.

If you fancy reading more about the National Citizen Service, these articles may be of interest!

http://www.thirdsector.co.uk/News/DailyBulletin/1103213/Cameron-plans-continue-National-Citizen-Service-expansion-2015/E9B47751510F08811E5DF77F86F61F58/?DCMP=EMC-CONDailyBulletin

http://www.thirdsector.co.uk/News/DailyBulletin/1103056/National-Citizen-Service-providers-will-charge-80-per-person-next-year/C5E671DF3773DB49C4E0E42A9C8169D2/?DCMP=EMC-CONDailyBulletin

The guys have decided that committee positions for the society will be revealed straight after the MLP lecture on Tuesday 8^th November, at 17.30pm.

For all those of you taking MLP in semester two or as an online unit (or for those of you who need reminding!), the lecture is in lecture theatre B, University Place.

If you’ve applied for a committee position – best of luck!

Want to apply for a position?!

Luckily, we still have positions left for some roles in the society, so if you haven’t applied yet but want to, no fear.

The following roles are available:

-          Chair

-          Vice chair

-          Secretary

-          Treasurer

-          Social Secretary

-          Marketing & PR

-          Academic Secretary (someone who will organise and initiate tutors/guest speakers etc to do seminars/workshops on effective Blackboard posting, initiate student meetings on interesting topics in lectures etc)

-          Fundraising secretary (who will be responsible for any fundraising events MLP society members carry out, getting sponsors etc)

But be snappy! Manifestos must be emailed to Katie.franklin@manchester.ac.uk        NO LATER THAN 5PM TODAY! 

Your manifesto should be around 350 words about why you are suited to this position.

It should include:

-          Name and year of study

-          The position you would like to apply for

-          Reasons why you think you are suitable for this role

-          Any other societies/groups you are committed to.

For those people on MLP who aren’t necessarily interested in a committee position, but want to be a member of the society, please come along to print your signatures – the union needs at least 30 signatures before the society can be registered.

There was loads of sign up after the lecture on the 18^th October, which showed that there was a great interest and demand for a Manchester Leadership Programme Society. However, we now need your signatures to make this possible!

It also means that as a NEW MEMBER of the MLP Society, you can meet your brand new committee and have a chat with them about what you want from the society, any ideas you might have, or just familiarise yourself with their faces in time for the first social!

See you at 17.30, Tuesday 8^th November, Lecture Theatre B, University Place.

The event was certainly full of mixed activities: badge making with Birch Community Association, to trying out the Cadbury’s ‘Spots V Stripes’ activities (much to the amusement of the Cadbury’s representative, who found my inability to co-ordinate my feet on a pogo stick laughable…) Each activity of course had the same purpose for each respective organisation – to recruit you, the student!

All manner of students attended, including many non-MLP students, which I think goes to show how important volunteering is becoming for students and their time at University. I got chatting to three non-MLP students: Laura Birch, Georgina Hanson and Ijeoma Emeruwa, all second year psychology students, who had signed up to “course-related” volunteering opportunities – ChildLine, Women Matta, Victim Support and Mothers Against Violence. This was interesting, as it showed genuine interest by these students about how volunteering directly related to their degree, and how it could, in the future, enhance their CV and improve their career opportunities.

Refugee action (an independent national charity that provides advice and support to asylum seekers and refugees in the UK) – were causing a stir with their stall as it involved giant jenga, which seemed to work in enticing people to their stall: the sound of shrieks and blocks of wood smashing on the floor as each hopeful, soon-to-be-volunteer attempted to outwit the game, provided a lively background noise.  Refugee Action’s main aim of holding a stall at the fete was to “mostly raise awareness”, get more people volunteering and signing up for their newsletter. The Refugee Action representative, who I spoke to, was really impressed with how many students already knew about Refugee Action – so if that was you, here’s 5 MLP hours for good measure. Only joking!

I also spoke to Poppy Appeal, whose stall was covered in giant red poppies. Their main aim for having a stall at our Volunteering Fete was to “get some younger volunteers for the Poppy Appeal!” The Royal British Legion spends more than a £1.4 million a week or over £200,000 a day in its work helping over 160,000 other members of the Armed Forces Family – dependents, veterans and the bereaved, and they wanted to share this message with the student population. I for one will be pinning a Poppy on my jacket in the next week when the campaign is in full-swing.

LivLife, an organisation who rightly believe that ‘everyone deserves to live a life free from poverty; to have a choice about who they want to be and what they want to do, not just to live the life they were born into.’ They also believe ‘education is key to helping people choose their direction, and that’s what LivLife’s Education Centres do – they give people the skills, knowledge and confidence to build better lives for themselves…’ LivLife work in Northern Tanzania with some of the world’s most disadvantaged people, and their stall certainly engaged people with the message they were trying to convey – ‘Poverty Limbo’, a game in which students picked a card which determined their wealth, and had to limbo accordingly. Unfortunately I picked the worst card they had, and had to limbo in a very undignified and clumsy manner a mere few inches off the ground! Despite the activity being a lot of fun, it really did highlight the poignancy of how impoverished some people are, and certainly represented the struggle of life the lower down the poverty scale you are.

LivLife were looking for enthusiastic students from all disciplines across the University and to recruit them for specific skills to help their centres. They told me that specific skill searching was great for volunteers as it allows them to use skills transferable to their CV as part of their volunteering. Roles LivLife specifically mentioned were marketing, events management, experience in schools (both in Tanzania and Manchester) and web design. I think this again highlights another organisation keen to show how volunteering can improve your employability.

If you were one of the 800 students who attended, we hope you had a great time and that the volunteering opportunities you signed up for will be long-lived and absolutely worthwhile.

Thanks to everyone who made the event a success and for providing the volunteering team with enough sweets and chocolate on stalls to last a lifetime!

Keep volunteering!

The Volunteering Fête, brought to you by the Volunteer & Community Engagement team here at the Uni, promises to be a fun and very interactive event.

You’ll be able to meet over 70 charities and non-for-profit organisations, who are making a real difference in the local community. This is YOUR chance to find out how they’re doing it, and more importantly, how you can get involved!

There really will be an activity for everyone; from donning beer goggles to giant jenga, human bingo to your oh-so-stereotypical (but always a winner!) tombola and lucky dip…

Alongside the activities you can chat to organisations and find out what it is they need volunteers for, what opportunities they have, and ask them any questions you may have about their charity/organisation.

Additionally… volunteering is also a great way to help others whilst helping yourself, so make sure you visit our careers stall at the fête to find out how volunteering can improve your career prospects.

The Fête will run from 11-4pm on Thursday 20th October, in Academy 1, Oxford Road.

See you at the Fête!

The Volunteering & Community Engagement team