March Volunteer Coordinators’ Forum with Hedley Featherstone MBE

March 2024 was our first official Forum of the year, the day before Spring officially starts. Our topic was "Spring into Action" with Hedley Featherstone MBE, who received his MBE for services to volunteering. We started with a focus on our "spring into action" with strong starts in volunteering.

Volunteer Coordinators' Forum March 2024

We had a lovely turn out with lots of new faces, and it was great to see them finding common connections and getting stuck into swapping details as soon as they arrived. 

We spoke about the new Volunteers Week dates and chatted about ideas that organisations were doing as part of it.

We also announced the exciting new Forum dates coming up:

Save the dates:

  • May 2024 - Tuesday 21st May – ONLINE ONLY 10:00am – 12:00pm – DBS
  • June 2024 - Tuesday 25th June – ONLINE ONLY 10:00am – 12:00pm – DBS part 2 - Barring by the DBS London team
  • July 2024 - Thursday 11th July Shinner and Sudtone and Sutton Soup SOCIAL IN PERSON 6pm onwards
  • August 2024 - nothing scheduled
  • September 2024 - Thursday 26th September, St Raphael's Hospice hosting, Investing in Volunteering Award 9.30/10am - 11.30/12pm
  • October 2024 - Thursday 17th October Shinner and Sudtone and Sutton Soup SOCIAL IN PERSON 6pm onwards
  • November 2024 - tbc
  • December 2024 - nothing scheduled

Hedley shared a snapshot of his amazing career including at one point looking after a staggering 10,000 volunteers (!) and recruiting 600 for the Olympics as part of Kensington Volunteer Centre!

He read some pieces from a Volunteer Management textbook and reminded us all of some key points when it comes to recruiting and retaining volunteers.

This is what one new Forum member said "It was great to meet you in person, your colleagues, and also other local like-minded people and organisations.  I learned a lot and will be sharing the information and ideas among Cre8."  Sara, Cre8 Football

Thank you to Hedley for giving us his time.

Hedley Featherstone MBE

In case you were wondering, February 2024 was an invitation for time out.

February 2024 Forum square

Linking into our Volunteering promotion and Feb-YOU-ary, the season of love, we decided that there would be no scheduled Volunteer Coordinator's Forum for February. Instead, the invitation was to take at least an hour from your busy day and do something just for you. The invitation was to go for a walk in nature, call a friend and catch up or even better arrange to meet up and walk together or have a nice long screen free lunch together, or maybe do a craft activity.

26 March 2024 by Jo Dawson
Categories: Organisations