- Written by Graydon Leigh -

　Want an opportunity to engage in and positively affect your community?

Want to win cool prizes for dedicating your time to an array of great causes?

Volunteer Victoria is very proud to sponsor the Volunteering with Benefits auction at the Victoria Marriott Hotel on Friday, May 11th from 7:30-9:30pm. Hosted by UnitedNOW, the event educates and promotes volunteerism within the community. It asks attendees to volunteer their time-as opposed to money-for a chance to earn some very handsome rewards.

This year’s prizes include passes to events and establishments including:

- Earl’s Chef’s Table - A guided tour and tasting of the Merridale ...

[Continue reading Attend UnitedNow’s Volunteering With Benefits Time Raiser]

We’d like to introduce guest contributor Charlene Dishaw, currently the Manager of Volunteer Resources at Delta Hospital in Ladner, BC.

After over 10 years of working in the field of Volunteer Management I was having a “heard that, seen them” feeling. I was looking for education that would elevate my work another level. The Vancouver Board of Trade brought in the Disney Leadership workshop and my passion for working with people was renewed. What did it for me? The thrill of hearing what big business has the time and money to research. And the research can be directly applied to our ...

[Continue reading Learning Outside the Volunteer Management Box]

We, in the Youth Volunteer Connections Program at Volunteer Victoria, have been wondering how to best communicate online with the young people who seek our support in finding meaningful volunteer opportunities. The blog post below was forwarded to us, and it has changed how we do things. It’s time: we are now ready to include facebook as a communication option with youth who prefer it. Each youth staff is creating his/her own professional profile, for example, you can find me at facebook/Leanna at Volunteer Victoria. So we’ll see how it works!

In the hopes that you ...

[Continue reading Communicating over Facebook: Will it work for us too?]

Have you ever had one of  ”those days” ? I think that we all have. Just one of those days when you feel “off”. I can remember, at the time of losing my mother, having quite a few of those days. I can remember sitting on the couch, just doing nothing and suddenly I would realise that hours had gone by. Luckily, with the encouragement of family and friend and with my own knowledge of mental health issues, I was able to address what turned out to be a depression, and move forward.

Many people  are not aware  that sometimes “those days” can be the beginning of something that ...

[Continue reading Not Myself Today]

Today’s blog post is contributed by Angela Vincent, a volunteer at the Victoria General Hospital. Angie’s story is a great example of how someone can discover their passion while volunteering! Read on…

Hello everyone! For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Angie. I am a mother of two beautiful children: Keegan who is seven & Kenzie who is three! I would like to share a small story with you. It’s about my volunteer experience and where it has taken me – I think I should begin with how it all started.

Previously I worked in the retail industry for over eleven ...

[Continue reading Where Can Volunteering Take You?]

It’s National Volunteer Recognition Week (April 15 – 21, 2012) and our chance to let those special volunteers in our lives know that “We Appreciate You!”.  All across Canada, all week long, volunteers will be celebrated and thanked in a myriad of different ways.

This year, Volunteer Victoria has partnered with Wells Gray Tours and CHEK TV to celebrate our local volunteers through the “We Appreciate You!” contest. Until April 20th you can nominate someone in our community for the great work they are doing. The ...

[Continue reading National Volunteer Recognition Week “We Appreciate You!” Contest]

The following is a guest blog post written and researched by one of Volunteer Victoria’s volunteer writers, Kate Lautens. Kate is one of two Volunteer Victoria Media Copy Writers that have been with us for over a year. Enjoy! !

The Youth Volunteer Connections Program (YVCP), Volunteer Victoria’s program supporting young people 15-29 in finding meaningful and rewarding volunteer opportunities, recently added three new staff members, Vik Dhindsa, Ebony Logins and Amy Hartzenberg. Under the leadership of Leanna Hill, program coordinator of the YVCP and ...

[Continue reading Meet our new Youth Team!]

We’d like to welcome guest blogger Claire Doherty to the Volunteer Victoria blog! Claire is a board member with the Victoria Immigrant and Refugee Centre Society (VIRCS), and has worked and volunteered for a wide variety of non-profit organizations. She wrote this blog post about attending our recent Board Q&A Sessions in February, 2012.

Image credit to www.bootifultings.blogspot.ca

I am a newbie board member, having been elected to the board of the Victoria Immigrant and Refugee Centre Society (VIRCS) in July 2011. I have learned a lot about my duties from my fellow VIRCS board ...

[Continue reading What I Learned as a Guinea Pig in Las Vegas]

We don’t often discuss here on our blog about how we actually manage our blog, so we thought we’d – of course! – write a blog post about it to help other organizations that would like to start or enhancing their blogging practices.

At Volunteer Victoria we have five staff members that regularly write posts for this blog. On top of the posts that Lisa, Lori, Leanna, Lornna and I create (I’m lucky they let me help since my name doesn’t begin with ‘L’!), we also bring in volunteers from our programs as much as we can to help out and present a different voice ...

[Continue reading Crafting Great Blog Posts]

Have you said “Thank-you” to anyone recently? If you did say it, did your thank-you message help inspire your volunteer, champion, or donor to support your organization for another year? Have you ever considered that a luke-warm or underwhelming thank-you can help turn an important relationship cold?

Now, you may think that Volunteer Victoria has lost the plot and that we are making a ‘thank-you’ mountain out of a ‘volunteers and donors already know that they are appreciated’ mole hill. But, ‘thank-you’ practices have changed over the years and with new technology, personality type and demographic groups respond differently to themes, delivery methods, and content, and your ‘thank-you’ may ...

[Continue reading We Appreciate You]