Just days before National Volunteer Week (16-22 June), the much-anticipated launch of the Competencies for Managers of Volunteers on Wednesday 12 June at 10.30am via webinar.
Why not make an event out of it? Invite your colleagues, invite your community, and join VNZ!
Date: Wednesday 12 June 2013
Time: 10.30am
How: Via webinar - registration details will be sent in the next couple of weeks, so watch your inboxes!
Wherever you are in the country or the world, as long as you have access to a computer with speakers, you'll be able to join us.
Why Competencies...
Aotearoa New Zealand is full of diverse and skilled managers of volunteers. Whether paid or volunteer, full-time, part-time or some-time, these women and men are the cogs around which volunteering turns. What they do is vitally important to the success of so much work in this volunteer-rich and volunteer-dependent nation. This volunteering happens because there is someone responsible for recruiting, coordinating and supporting the people – Coordinators and Managers of Volunteers!
Across their diversity, a point of agreement for most managers of volunteers is that they are 100% committed to ensuring the volunteers they work with have the best experience possible in their volunteering. For volunteers in the team to be their best and experience the best, the manager of volunteers they are working with also needs to be constantly seeking to be their best. To spark greater innovation within organisations and greater volunteer programmes, managers of volunteers need to invest in their own professional development and need the support of their organisations to do so. Great managers of volunteers will support growth within the community and be a voice for the voluntary sector as a whole.
New Zealand managers of volunteers have emphasised their desire for a learning and development pathway, consisting of:
- Clear entry points
- Opportunities for on-going learning
- Recognition of prior learning
- Leadership extension
For a pathway to be able to really work, we need to be able to see our progress along it. To do this, we need some kind of marker. Competencies can function as these markers. VNZ's Competencies are broad, high-level and encompassing of diversity. They describe the essence of the work managers of volunteers do, regardless of whether they are paid or volunteer, and regardless of the industry / sector they work in. They help managers of volunteers identify their strengths and passions, and also their areas for further growth.
