Volunteering 2.0 – Jewish Volunteering Network helps charities get social network savvy

Over 60 professionals from charities in the community attended the latest - and 6th - JVN Volunteer Coordinator Forum held last Wednesday 9th March 2011 at Jewish Care's new Amelie House HQ, which aim to highlight and examine the latest topics in volunteering and volunteering management.

The event gathered together volunteer coordinators from over 24 different organisations to learn about Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and more, with a view to achieving Volunteering 2.0 - bringing together organisations and their volunteers and supporters via social networks. Speakers included Jamie Ward-Smith, pioneer of charity social networking and founder of the Red Foundation, Leonie Lewis, Director of JVN and Simon Morris, chief executive of Jewish Care.

Some of the charities represented in the Jewish sector were the CST, Gift, Camp Simcha, Kisharon, Norwood, Jewish Care and All Aboard Shops. Non-denominational charities including Neuroblastoma Children's Cancer Alliance, Volunteer Reading Help, Link Up, ReachOut Plus and St Andrews United Reform Church, also attended.

The day kicked off, after introductions from Leonie Lewis and Simon Morris, by a presentation by Jamie Ward-Smith from the Red Foundation on volunteering and social media. The session included a novel social networking exercise with attendees asked to write on a piece of paper something they were passionate about and then encouraged them to go around the room and convince other participants that their item was important - a real life example of networking in practice. A participant with an interest in ancient weaponry had - not very surprisingly - achieved no followers at all by the end of the exercise, with participants selling chocolate or holidays in the sun - rather unsurprisingly - proving the most popular!

Other items on the 6th JVN Forum agenda were work sessions given over to how the organisations could take back what they had learnt from the social networking presentation into their organisations; a very thought-provoking discussion exercise looking at five problematic situations Volunteer Coordinators can encounter with volunteers, using real live inspired scenarios, including how to manage personality clashes; and a final information-sharing session looking at upcoming events, changes in the CRB system and other news from the cutting edge of volunteer life.