An afternoon of gardening

It may have been a cold, frosty afternoon but that didn’t stop a group of intrepid staff and student volunteers heading out and about to support the Friends of Old Durham Gardens. Based just cross the river from Maiden Castle, the historic site dates from the 17^th century. Over recent years a group of Friends have come together to support the restoration of this fantastic site back to its former glory. Armed with spades, garden forks and secateurs our volunteers spent an afternoon clearing self-seeded shrubs and trees, pruning bushes and helping with a general tidy up.

One volunteer said: ” It was great to get staff and students together and to have a positive impact on these historic gardens. Despite the cold weather, we all worked hard to clear trees to prevent them causing damage to the old walls. The trustees of Old Durham Gardens that were there were really helpful and informative; we learnt about the history of the gardens, they showed us how to use the tools, and even gave us coffee and flapjack at the break! Hopefully we can have more staff-student challenges there as it’s a beautiful location to volunteer in.”

With the close proximity to the University and the eagerness of the Friends of Old Durham Gardens after this first event, we’ll be back as the weather gets warmer for more challenges. If you’d like to get involved let us know by contacting community.engagement@durham.ac.uk

Celebrations for the SVO Team

The Staff Volunteering and Outreach team have been celebrating over the last week as we gained the Investing in Volunteers for Employers (IiVE) quality standard from the United Kingdom Volunteering Forum. This is a huge achievement for the SVO team and Durham University, but more importantly this would have not been possible without our hundreds of volunteers who have supported activities in local communities and who assisted us during the accreditation process. So a big thank you to all our supporters and volunteers!

Over the past three years, the Staff Volunteering and Outreach programme has grown from its infancy, when it was known as the Phoenix Project to where we are today.  We now have over 430 registered volunteers, which represents over 10% of the University work force and one of most significant achievements over the past 12-months has been the increasing demand for Team Challenges.

One autumnal day back  in October 2010, senior members of the University, along with staff volunteers and Team Durham colleagues set to work, clearing the grounds and gardening at one of our local community partners. This was the first team challenge and since then our aim has been to offer two challenges a month. With demand soaring from all of our committed volunteers and word spreading across departments, we are currently exceeding this target and Team Challenges are growing in popularity. Since October, numerous volunteers have taken part in a Team Challenge.

Being optimistic, I’d like to say that Spring is just around the corner (it is after all the first day of February) and so our community partners with outdoor spaces are already beginning to think in a ‘green-fingered’ manner. We already have two team challenges lined-up, both open to staff from any departments, so this is an ideal opportunity to get-involved, give volunteering a try and meet staff from across the University. For more information about our gardening and hedge planting team challenges taking place on Wednesday 8^th February and Wednesday 21^st March get in touch with us at community.engagement@durham.ac.uk  

Time...a gift that keeps on giving.

A busy time of year, isn't it?! What with decorating the home in seasonal cheeriness, buying gifts and preparing for family get-togethers, you can feel a bit 'spent' when it comes to giving and even more so if it's your time that's needed. And so... a couple of tales to cheer any flagging spirits...

Willow Burn Hospice paid tribute at our volunteer lunch recently to  staff  volunteers from the Business School who gave up a day of their time to sort, price and put tickets on goods that had been donated to the Hospice (clothes, books and toys) for two fundraising fayres that the Hospice had organised. Willow Burn Hospice is a small unit in Maiden Law, Lanchester which, for the last 23 years,  has been supporting patients and their families who are suffering from life limiting illness. They offer an in-patient unit and have a number of outpatient and community services available including day hospice, symptom management clinics, holistic therapies and family bereavement counselling and support.  

Staff from the Business School spent a day in not-so-luxurious surroundings at the Hospice warehouse packing tombola prizes and cataloguing event equipment. But seemingly small gifts of time can have a huge impact; because the goods had been cleaned, marked up and sorted properly the Hospice found that the takings at both fayres were up by over 50% on previous years. As well as completing a task that would have taken workers from the Hospice over a week to get through, the fayres brought in a contribution of £11,500 towards the running costs of the Hospice...which in real terms paid for a week's services for  terminally ill clients. Buying more quality time for these clients is perhaps the greatest gift the staff could possibly have given.   A huge thank you to the Business School teams for their hard work, enthusiasm and, most of all, their sense of fun!

Staff volunteers aross the board have been extremely busy and have clocked up an extraordinary number of hours taking part in events, activities and local good causes. Avril Brown, leading a team of volunteers from Queen's Campus, adopted the Cyrenians as their favoured charity after working on  a garden allotment for the charity as part of a team challenge in the summer.  The team just thought it would be a nice idea to get some gifts for the client residents  - formerly homeless young men living in hostel accommodation or in supported  tenancies. The worker at the Cyrenians mentioned that a lot of the clients have children and explained how difficult it was for them to get funds together to buy gifts and how they worried about spending time with them. Back at Queen’s Campus, Avril sent out a call-to-arms and an email  went out to all Admin Network members to pass on to their colleagues asking for donations of gifts and clothes for the men and for their children.

Staff  from all different departments and disciplines at Queen's Campus were extremely generous donating gifts of scarfs, aftershave clothes and games for the men and all sorts of toys for their children. Another email went out asking for more  for cash donations to buy gifts  and a couple of the volunteer team  members targeted local stores – Tesco, Asda, Sainsburys etc. to see if they could encourage them to contribute. Avril organised a  team  to wrap and stick bows on the gifts, labelling the children’s gifts with contents/ages etc.The team managed to collect nearly 100 gifts for the guys at the Cyrenians and delivered them along with a Christmas tree to the Cyrenians' hostel at Plawsworth.  Tesco also very kindly donated £60 worth of gifts too – so hopefully Christmas will be a bit more special for them all this year. The Cyrenians' staff and client residents were absolutely delighted with the gifts; they can now experience the pleasure of spending time with their children and watching them open gifts – something a lot of them did not think was possible this year. Thank you Avril and your wonderful team!

If you'd like to get in touch next year about getting involved in your local community, drop us a line at community.engagement@durham.ac.uk  or give us a call on 0191 334 2199.

A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from the team from Staff Volunteering and Outreach.

Beating the back-to-school blues!

As we gallop headlong towards the new academic year, it feels like it’s already time to schedule in a little breathing space out and about in the community. Here at SVO land we’ve been recruiting a new team member, rounding up challenge events and smartening up our procedures for our Investing in Volunteers accreditation.

Feedback from the assessment has been very useful…we will be introducing some sort of volunteering insignia-type-thing for those digging holes in public places after the ladies from the business School found themselves being hollered at by white van man to “get a proper job.” We’ll ensure too that there isn’t a hint of orange overall as aforementioned ladies were also assumed to be working out their community service. Mind you…

And thanks to the volunteers who took part in the IiV assessment interviews; not a hint of snarkiness to be found which proved to the assessor that our SVO scheme was doing rather well. Either that or we’d bribed everyone but it’s pretty clear we just don’t have the sort of cash to fork out for a lot of sherry and buns.

It’s that time of year too when some parents may feel a little bushier-tailed, a little lighter in the step. For others with little people heading off to school for the first time and who are perhaps feeling a little tearful that their beloved poppet (wearing an oversized uniform that’s only really going to look good for two days max) is striding out to conquer the world or maybe just Primary 1, we’ve been arranging a few distractions for you.

For those that are feeling relieved that they’ve survived 6 weeks of pass-the-parcel childcare, teenager angst or bank-busting distractions/activities/bribes for their little treasures, your alternative therapies have been arranged.

And for those of you who have a life…

Volunteering often conjures up images of cardigan-clad senior citizens staffing the local charity shop with the level of financial acumen that would put the banking establishment to shame…and for those of you interested in pursuing such activities we can in fact place you at appropriate venues.

In reality though, it’s more often about lending a helping hand; it’s much more practical, pragmatic and direct. A team from Biomedical Sciences found out at the start of the summer that their morning spent fixing up the garden of a person that had previously been homeless and who had enduring mental health issues, was in fact life-changing when the tenant attempted to engage with and really enjoy the company of other people - a first for him in a long time.

To get a flavour of the work we’ve been involved in, the first edition of our newsletter is out and available online at: http://www.dur.ac.uk/volunteer/volunteers/factsheet/

For more information about opportunities, charities and events, drop us a line at: community.engagement@ durham.ac.uk 

 Laters!