A few Resources for Volunteer Managers
The long-standing top resource for people interested in the field of volunteer management has been the UKVPM (UK Volunteer Programme Managers) mailing list - run through the Yahoo Groups infrastructure and moderated by leaders in the field including Rob Jackson, the director of volunteering development at Volunteer England.
"UKVPMs mission is to increase the scope, scale and quality of
both voluntary activity and the management of volunteers":
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/UKVPMs
There is also a OZ counterpart called... OZVPMs. They incidentally have a site with lots of useful resources including the book featured on the right (which is currently being revised but it has been promised that the new version will also be available free of charge).
Now, last but not least, for England & Wales there is a more formal working group being established and expected to launch in June. Here's what they are setting out to do (taken from a UKVPM posting):
"The initial services will include
- enabling peer support networks across England, and work with existing
networks
- providing a members' skills register that members can access and use
- establishing a policy group that will respond to issues that affect
volunteer managers and campaign on behalf of volunteer managers
- setting up a calendar of training events for Volunteer managers
- setting up a list of accreditation courses
- providing a library of useful resources - good practice, toolkits and
research
- providing links to useful sites
- providing information on venues to hold meetings, events and
conferences with feedback"
If you want to be kept up-to-date on that and other VPM developments, sign up to the group (you can then also search the extensive archive which links to many a useful resource).
In Scotland there is already a similar setup: http://www.savm.org.uk/
