Making Music is currently developing a new volunteer programme through our Inspiring Volunteers (iVol) Action Group. The group, made up of Making Music staff, Board Directors and volunteers, meets every two months to discuss how best to attract, inspire and retain volunteers so we can grow our volunteer force from 150 to 1,000 by 2015.
Through consultation with existing volunteers and staff, we have developed a Volunteers’ Policy that has been approved by the Board. Coinciding with the development of this policy, we signed up to Volunteering England’s 3R Promise and are committed to working towards the pledges within that.
As stated in the Volunteers’ Policy, we are committed to only placing volunteers into roles which they are capable of fulfilling, which means more proactive recruitment and positive selection. This also means being as clear as possible with volunteers about what their role entails, what we expect of them and what they can expect of us. A consistent Role Description template has been developed so volunteers can see what a role involves before agreeing to take it on. Here is a role description example from the South West region.
We have also developed a template Volunteer Agreement. This is not legally binding and is not designed to form a contract. It is a statement of what we expect of our volunteers and what our volunteers can expect of Making Music. Finally, we have developed a Volunteers Induction Handbook to help new volunteers settle in. This is especially important with volunteers being managed over such large geographical areas. One-to-one contact may be hard to maintain, and we hope this tool will help us to manage and support volunteers remotely.
Later in the year the volunteers section of the website will expand even further, so keep checking in for new developments.
