What Restorative Justice Means in Our Community

The following blog post was written by Graydon Leigh, a political science major at the University of Victoria. Graydon grew up in Port Coquitlam, BC and aspires to be a journalist. He is an avid hockey fan and is honoured to write about volunteerism in the Victoria community.

Before my interview with Gillian Lindquist, Program Coordinator for the Victoria Restorative Justice Society (VRJS), I knew little about the methodology behind restorative justice. Gillian told me that “the society provides meaningful and personal responses to crime and harmful behaviour”, but I think this short statement isn’t enough to explain …

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Volunteer Victoria’s Leanna Hill Wins Youth Leadership Award

We are very pleased to announce that our valued colleague, and friend, Leanna Hill recently won The Vancity Youth Award at The Victoria Leadership Awards.

This award recognizes a young leader between the ages of 20 and 30 who demonstrates community leadership in one or more of the following areas:

People: Building wealth with those who need it most; Planet: Sustaining our environment; Places: Promoting community growth and change.

 

There were so many deserving and inspirational nominees in this category, so we are especially proud of Leanna’s accomplishment!

Volunteer Victoria also wishes to acknowledge and thank all of the other incredible nominees for their outstanding contributions …

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Eyes on Craigdarroch Castle

The following is a guest blog post written and researched by one of Volunteer Victoria’s volunteer writers, Gwen Hill. Gwen is one of two Volunteer Victoria Media Copy Writers and she has been with us for just over a year. She says she “has been writing for pleasure and craft since she figured out how to hold a pen”.  Gwen maintains a blog on managing depression, which you can visit by clicking on this link.”  Enjoy!

It was first a lavish Victorian home. Then a military hospital. A college, a school board – And now, it’s Craigdarroch …

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Strategic Volunteering for Job-Seekers

Over the years I’ve worked for Volunteer Victoria I’ve done many presentations on the topic of volunteering to adult groups. (My colleagues in the youth program make presentations to youth groups.) Lately, I find myself talking a lot – especially to people in career transition – about strategic volunteering.

While this may be a new term to some of you the concept isn’t that hard to grasp. Essentially it means that while volunteers are offering their time and talents for free to an agency that needs their help, they are in turn receiving something that is important to them. Since we know …

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BC Societies Act Update

The Ministry of Finance released a discussion paper in December 2011 regarding proposed amendments to the BC Society Act. The proposed amendments are drafted to “recognize the unique nature of societies and aim to balance societies” need for flexibility with broader concerns of accountability and integrity.

The Government Non Profit Initiative website notes that the paper “does not reflect government policy at this stage, but rather is intended to stimulate discussion on a possible direction for reform.”

 
The proposed amendments could have significant impacts on all of the 26,000 non profit organizations operating in BC. The adoption of a new corporate law framework would …

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