dale lane

At the Solent Youth Action trustees meeting tonight, one interesting fact-let that got noted was that young people have volunteered over 172,000 hours in SYA projects and activities since we started.

I’m not normally a fan of endless statistics, but I thought this was an interesting one.

172,000 hours

or

7,167 days
(more if you consider ‘working days’)

or

nearly 20 years

Or… if you consider their time worth at least the minimum wage, then

£920,200

(Okay, so many of the young people we work with are too young to be elegible for the full £5.35 minimum wage but humour me – I’m playing with numbers. 🙂 )

Wow, that’s pretty cool. 😀

For the young people who do Millennium Volunteers, today’s transfer of MV from the DfES to the new independent charity ‘v’ is probably a non-event. I imagine many of them won’t notice at all – and “business as usual” is certainly the message that v is encouraging us all to send to them.

The most noticeable difference will probably be the change to the certificates that young people get after completing 200 hours of voluntary work. Before today, the certificates were signed by a government minister – because they were the responsibility of the DfES. Now that link has gone, the certificates from today will be signed by the Chief Exec of the new charity v – Terry Ryall.

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One of the things I found out about at the v conference on Thursday was vcashpoint.

vcashpoint is their “funding initiative” where they will give money directly to young people to fund set up voluntary community projects. The idea is that if a young person (aged 16-25) has an idea for something that they think will benefit their community, they can apply to v for a grant of up to £2,500 to help them make it happen. Successful applicants get the money transferred to a bank account of their choice, and v monitor the outcome of the project in much the same way that they would with a voluntary provider like us.

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I’m sat on a train, on my way to a one day “Welcome to v” conference. I’ve mentioned v many times now – this is the group that is taking over the running (and perhaps more importantly, the funding) of Millennium Volunteers (MV) from the DfES.

Millennium Volunteers is our biggest single source of funding in Solent Youth Action, so v is obviously important to us.

They have invited MV providers to come to London and hear about what they have done to date, and their plans for the future – including (finally!) some details about how they will be managing and monitoring the MV projects.

There is also something in the timetable about discussion and small group sessions to get our views on the shape of the new “National Youth Volunteering Programme”.

Plus, I imagine it’ll be the usual chance to network with other youth charities.

Last month saw the launch of the Fundraising Standards Board – the new “self-regulatory” body for fundraising in the UK. It comes with a groovy logo (a blue tick with “FSB”) which charities can use to reassure people donating money that they are nice fluffy types.

From their website:

…we will handle public complaints about how our members … raise money as well as offering the public a “mark of reassurance” to look for when giving to charities in the future…

…membership is voluntary… and [involves agreeing to] a strict set of codes and a Fundraising Promise committing them to treat the public with respect, fairness, honesty and clarity in all their money raising activities…. [and] an independent, robust and transparent complaints process…

[This is] an independent body you can go to if you are unhappy about how a charity raises money.

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I’ve talked before about Millennium Volunteers, wondering what will happen to it and whether the new organisation V will keep it going as it is.

They are obviously wondering themselves, and have published the outcome of some research carried out last December into the Millennium Volunteers “brand”. The intention is to help inform decisions made about what to do with MV going forward. It makes for interesting reading.

On the one hand there was:

Strong preference from young people to refer to “Millennium Volunteers” rather than the acronym “MV”.

However, on the other hand, there were comments about changing “Millennium Volunteers”:

because “millennium” is seen as outdated and the use of the word “volunteering” puts young people off

For lots more statistics about the perceptions of MV, the benefits it brings, and thoughts on how the value of volunteer efforts can be measured, have a look at the summary of their findings which can be downloaded in PDF form from mvonline.gov.uk.

I guess the jury is still out on the future of MV.

I took a day off work today to help with a Solent Youth Action activity (a chance to use my renewed MIDAS certificate! 😉 ).

We took a group of 11-13 year old kids for a day of stream clearing – pulling out rubbish, clearing weeds, and cutting back overgrown plants. It’s half-term week so it was an all-day activity. They did a great job – it’s impressive what a group of enthusiastic people standing up to their thighs in cold water can do!

Today was a Taster Day – a chance to introduce some young people to volunteering. As the name suggests, Taster Days offer a variety of different activities that young people can try out without needing any long-term commitment. If they enjoy it to want to do more, they get help finding similar activities to do in the future. If not, they can always try something else.

By the end of the day they all seemed to have enjoyed it, and hopefully will think of “volunteering” as something fun that they’ll want to do again.