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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1)
2011-11-08 Daily Xml
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VOLUNTEERS

Mr PICCOLO (Light) (16:04): Today I would just like to talk about a couple of community events I attended recently regarding volunteering. On 26 October I had the pleasure of attending the Annual General Meeting of Volunteering SA & NT, along with the new minister, minister Hunter, from the other place.

I was given the honour to MC the AGM. Volunteering SA has a history which goes back to 1982. In fact, on 23 August 1982 the South Australian Volunteers Centre (the pioneer organisation of Volunteering SA) opened its front doors for the first time. Located in the City of Adelaide, the centre was the brainchild of two dynamic women: Mavis Reynolds and Joy Noble. At first the centre was fully staffed by volunteers, however, with the support of the South Australian Council for Social Services, funds were made available from the then department of community welfare and the Co-op Building Society and a part-time coordinator was put in place.

In 1994 the South Australian Volunteers Centre was incorporated as Volunteering SA Incorporated, and in 2007 it changed its name to Volunteering SA & NT, which obviously took in the Northern Territory. As the peak body representing the interests of volunteers and the volunteering sector in South Australia and the Northern Territory, Volunteering SA & NT's mission is to promote volunteering and to play a key leadership role in advancing volunteering by providing an extensive range of services, support and resources for some 600,000 volunteers and over 1,400 volunteer organisations.

The other event I attended was on 4 November last week. I attended the Northern Volunteering SA 2011 graduation ceremony for those people who graduated from the Advanced Diploma in Community Sector Management—Volunteer Management diploma course. Also present at the graduation ceremony was the member for Florey, Frances Bedford, the member for Taylor, Leesa Vlahos and the member for Little Para, Lee Odenwalder.

I was also privileged to be a guest speaker at the actual ceremony itself. Northern Volunteering SA has a history which goes back to 1984. The new service was introduced into the northern region (then called the Para Districts Volunteer Referral Service). It was originally established for the purpose of matching volunteers with voluntary jobs. Initially, the service operated just one day a week from the office of the Para Districts Counselling Service in Sidney Chambers in the Elizabeth Town Centre.

By May 1985 the number of registered organisations was 10 and registered volunteers numbered over 70. In 1997 the name of the service was changed to Northern Volunteering SA Incorporated, and in October 1999 Northern Volunteering moved to its current address at 39 Johns Street, Salisbury. Today, Northern Volunteering continues to support the northern community through volunteer referrals, management support and, most importantly, training programs.

I mentioned that I was there to see the graduates of that advanced diploma program, and I would like to congratulate all the graduates who spoke on the day—a couple spoke very well and spoke very highly of the program. South Australia is the only state in Australia to offer volunteer management programs to the advanced diploma level. The initial diploma course was initiated by Volunteering SA and TAFE SA to meet the growing demand for people with skills in managing volunteers in various situations.

The advanced diploma seeks to provide volunteer managers with the highest level of knowledge and skills to enable them to get the best from their volunteers and to create an environment which will encourage volunteering. At the graduation ceremony I spoke briefly about the challenges facing volunteer groups, and particularly those people who are actually involved in managing volunteers.

It is interesting that, in recent weeks, the local media have reported and highlighted the steady decline (and, unfortunately, ageing) in membership of many of the traditional volunteer organisations like service clubs. Interestingly, though, while membership of formal organisations (like service clubs) was declining, the volunteering activities were not. So, one of the messages from that is that, obviously, a lot more people are now volunteering in an informal way. The challenge for volunteer managers then is to better understand the motivations and challenges which each volunteer faces. By understanding their volunteers and the diversity of volunteers, they will be able to better match up the volunteer effort with the volunteer jobs around. Quite clearly, one model does not fit all the needs of each volunteer.

Time expired.

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