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Monday Sep 01, 2008
What becomes of an ex-volunteer?
Two months ago I left the organisation I'd been volunteering with since I was a kid. It was a fairly amicable split (at least on my part) and I'd been planning it for a while. The reasons that I left aren't that important (nor particularly interesting); what is more significant is what happens now.
When you leave an established job, unless you've been disciplined out or made redundant by evil new management, the chances are when you have your farewell drinks won't be the last time you remain in contact with the organisation or it's employees. The level you stay in touch is really up to you: from setting up your own consultancy that your old company then hires you back to do the work you were previously doing whilst in their pay, through to an occasional drink with your former colleagues when you happen to be near their office.
Good managers recognise that as an ex-employee you have tremendous knowledge and experience about what they do, and often it's a good idea to keep you on side. Quite often that's informal; I've occasionally taken calls or emails from my previous place of work asking "how did you do that when you were here?" or "can you remember the code for this thing?". And generally I'm happy to answer them.
But with volunteering it's a bit different. Because there is no payment involved, any contact you have with an organisation is "volunteering", and once you step down from being a volunteer for them, then it needs to be a total split. In a lot of ways, that's a good thing; otherwise you get the infamous voluntary sector workload-creep, and suddenly you find that despite leaving the organisation you are still doing things for them and worrying about them.
However, it also means that volunteer organisations aren't very good at building on best practice: if someone has been doing a role for a while and then leaves, you need them to be able to explain why they made the choices they did in their role, so others don't have to go through the same learning experience. Volunteers, like employees, can have huge knowledge bases about a particular area of your organisation's field of work.
And whilst employees have to give notice periods, volunteers can be here-today-gone-tomorrow. They can leave right in the middle of a project or event. I've known projects that have come to a standstill as a result of a key volunteer leaving. How many websites are there which haven't been updated since a volunteer webmaster quit – often forgetting (or refusing) to pass the login details on?
As for me - I'm not quite sure what my next move is. But, I've already had several invites to be involved in things for the organisation I left. On the one hand, it's flattering to be recognised for the contribution that I can make. On the other, I left for a reason. That should tell them all they need to know.
Posted by Olly Benson ( 8:24 AM ) Link to this post Comments[0]
Friday Aug 22, 2008
Do-It day
The TUC have launched a new campaign to have a new bank holiday, and suggested that rather than it just being an excuse to get horribly drunk and regret it the next day; this day should be a Community Day where people would be encouarged to spend a day volunteering and doing something different.
Knowing most of the volunteers that I do, they'd be automatically volunteering on that day anyway (be it formally or just spending an extra day doing paperwork and all that other hidden volunteering that goes on). What we need it a way of encouraging new people to take up volunteering, to "do it" if you will.... perhaps having a really easy website where you could sign up to one million volunteering opportunities.
Therefore, and perhaps this is a bit cheeky---but it is the Friday before a Bank Holiday---I'd like to propose that it's not named Community Day, but Do-It Day.
Oh, and we've already got the website to support it: do-it.org.uk.
Posted by Olly Benson ( 2:03 PM ) Link to this post Comments[0]
Friday Jun 27, 2008
Do CRB checks deter volunteers?
Yesterday think-tank Civitas published a report that said adults are afraid to interact with children for fear of being labelled as paedophiles.
The Home Office rebuffed the report saying that there was no evidence that vetting deterred volunteers, and that CRBs had stopped 20,000 unsuitable people from gaining work with vulnerable individuals.
As someone who's been involved in recruiting volunteer youth leaders over a number of years, I think Civitas have a point; and the Home Office is being naïve if it thinks that requiring people to undertake a CRB doesn't deter otherwise suitable individuals.
It's also not exactly true to say there is no evidence – NCH and Chance UK did some research last year and discovered that 1 in 5 people from BME communities are deterred by the CRB. Children's Commissioner Sir Al Aynsley-Green also told the Home Affairs select committee that potential leaders are being put off by criminal record checks.
Requiring someone to disclose their criminal past is a big ask for any organisation; especially right at the start of the process of joining. By the age of 35, 1 in 5 adults have been convicted for a crime, and of those 84% will be male. That means that nearly 1 in 3 men in the UK aged 35+ have been prosecuted or cautioned for breaking the law (Source: Hansard: Col 139, 10 Dec 1996). Most of those offences are minor and insignificant when it comes to checking the suitability of the individual; but they are still declaring something that they may have not told partners, children or even their employers.
My experience of working with volunteers who have previous convictions – albeit for petty theft and benefit fraud – is that they feel highly ashamed of having this information made available. And this is for the ones who are prepared to undertake a CRB. Others simply decide not to apply, withdraw their application, or most likely simply no longer return calls when they are asked to declare their criminal records.
20,000 unsuitable people being stopped from working with vulnerable individuals is a good thing. But at the same time there has been a significant drop in the number of adults prepared to volunteer to work with young people. This can lead to young people having less structured out-of-school activities and ultimately to them spending more time on the streets where there are none of the safeguards that a youth group has.
It's difficult to see a solution, because I'm certainly not advocating removing the requirement for CRBs as part of the recruitment of youth leaders. But continuing to deny it is a problem is not going to solve the problem of a significant lack of volunteer youth leaders in this country.
Posted by Olly Benson ( 8:59 AM ) Link to this post Comments[13]
Monday May 19, 2008
Why we need to champion volunteer youth leaders
The recent spate of teenage killings in London and the subsequent election of Boris Johnson as the capital’s mayor has brought the issue of providing out-of-school opportunities for young people to the forefront. Mayor Boris has already said he’s going to invest in weekend activities for young people in an effort to crush the blight of gangs and gang-culture.
It’s all very good offering money, but many of these activities are already provided by the voluntary sector. Indeed one of the standard cries of certain commentators in both the media and political arenas is “why aren’t they taking part in after school clubs?” before reeling off a long-list of activities they had access to when they were young.
The response, if you ask any of the charities who run these activities, is that they simply don’t have the number of adults willing to run these projects, especially outside of leafy-surburbs and market towns and villages. My own experience of running a youth group based in Handsworth, a struggling part of Birmingham, was that within weeks of realising there was something fun and engaging to do I had a weekly stream of new young people wanting to get involved. Yet with just me and one other adult volunteer we couldn’t reasonably take more than 15 of them.
I hated the fact I had to turn young people away; but the brutal truth was I couldn’t be expected to cater for all of them. I hated the fact that when I discovered one of them was only 9, I had to stop him coming because our minimum age was 10 (and why should I allow him in when there were 10 and 11 year olds who we were turning away?). I knew he’d be wandering the streets whilst his older brother was benefitting from the group.
Sat in the pub on Friday night, the group I was with got on to discussing being involved in youth groups. Of the six around the table, 4 or 5 had been involved in one group or another at some point whilst growing up; and pretty much all of them had had positive experiences.
What, however, was more interesting was the attitude towards the leaders who helped out. The nudge-nudge, wink-wink attitude about leaders, especially males, and them volunteering to work with young people. The inference being that anyone who took on these sorts of roles must have some sort of ulterior or underhand motive.
And yet, ask any of these organisations and they’ll tell you that engaged, motivated and high-calibre youth leaders (male and female) are like gold-dust. They are crying out for leaders not just to expand their services, but to keep them running at their current level. They are not just a fantastic asset for the organisation but brilliant role-models for the young people involved.
But we’re never going to make volunteering with young people attractive if those that do, even in the confides of pub banter, are being labelled in an extremely negative way. We make huge demands on volunteers who work with young people, we shouldn’t be adding to that by expecting them to defend themselves against those kinds of lurid accusations, even if they are said in jest.
The sector needs to do more to tackle this negative portrayal and present volunteering with young people in a positive way. Because not only is it becoming increasingly difficult to recruit into these roles, but more volunteer leaders are simply going to decide it’s more hassle than it’s worth.
And then eventually the only people left willing to volunteer to work with young people will be exactly the sort of people who probably shouldn’t.
Posted by Olly Benson ( 10:42 AM ) Link to this post Comments[1]
Monday Apr 21, 2008
It's all about us
Recently I took part in a debate on E-Volunteerism about trends in the way Generation Y (those individuals born between 1981 and 1995) is volunteering and how volunteer-involving organisations can adapt to engage Generation Y. Part of the discussion looked at whether Gen Y volunteered more episodically and whether they were more self-focused in their approach to volunteering.
It is really easy to slip into a way of talking about Generation Y that attributes all kinds of characteristics to the way they volunteer, when what we’re actually talking about is the latest evolution in volunteering and not the latest generation of volunteers. This distinction is really important because it changes it from being a debate between those who actively involve Gen Y volunteers to a wider debate about how as a sector we change and adapt with the times.
Good examples that demonstrate this distinction are:
- As employment markets change, so do approaches to volunteering
- As digital technology changes working environments (or human activity generally), so it changes volunteering
- As charities and social movements change and grow, so do the opportunities to get involved
A debate about how best to involve young people from the standpoint of how the world around us (starting with your local community) is operating today, is more fruitful than simply head scratching about what young people are like today. To be clear, if you work to understand how the world around us is functioning today, you’ll better understand what young people are like in the present.
More episodic volunteering?
There is, perhaps, more episodic volunteering nowadays. But this is due to the more episodic career paths we have now on the one hand, and the digital technology which has fragmented the world around us on the other, allowing us to look beyond our local communities. I remember when I worked in Guatemala how struck I was by the commitment many young people had to their local volunteering roles such as health promoters, teachers or church groups. But part of this was due to the reality of volunteering in small rural communities – this link with the local community was not as strong in the larger, urban capital of Guatemala City.
Are volunteers nowadays more self-focused?
Are young people more self-focused than any other age group? I don't think so. Most people approach volunteering with a balance of personal and social motivations. For example, if a younger person is more likely to want to learn a skill and an older person is more likely to want to meet new people, these are both personal motivations. It doesn’t follow that either is necessarily any less likely to want to volunteer for a social motivation like being able to help others.
The phrase self-focused is quite ambiguous. Are we hinting at selfishness or do we mean self-interestedness? Both selfishness and enlightened self-interestedness is about looking after your own needs. The difference is whether you’re being mindful of the needs of others at the same time. Volunteering obviously fits in with the latter; it’s enlightened self-interest. It doesn’t really make sense to talk about people volunteering their time selfishly. As a result, it makes more sense to think about whether we really know how Gen Y express this need to help others (which can show us new ways of volunteering happening today), before we’re tempted to say whether they’re any more self-focused, self-interested or selfish than anyone else.
Not them and us, it's all about us
It seemed to be me that engaging in a them and us debate, missed the bigger picture. Them, the volunteers. Them, the young people. Them, the more self-focused. Them, the episodically committed. It's about us. Us, in a new working environment. Us, in a new way of communicating and sharing information. Us, wanting social change.
Sounds glib, but it really is all about us- all of us :-)
Tuesday Mar 18, 2008
Volunteering - now and in the future
We ran a few presentations this morning on all things volunteering.
First up was Sarah, our very own Research Manager, who presented some top line findings from our Volunteer Satisfaction Survey (we'll get that up here shortly). The survey was completed by more than 2,200 volunteers on do-it.org.uk, and there are some really juicy stats in there.
Sarah was followed by Joe Gordon, one of the Commissioners for England Volunteering Development Council's "Future of Volunteering" Commission. As well as having one of the most confusing intros ever, Joe talked through his role in producing the Manifesto for Change, as well as some of his observations on the six recommendations outlined in the report.
Joe then passed the baton on to Fiona, YouthNet's Chief Executive, who outlined the Government's response to the Manifesto for Change, before talking through some of our priorities over the next 12 months or so.
We then had time for a quick but lively Q&A session, hosted by one of our Trustees, Aesha Zafar.
Here are the slides and keep your eyes peeled for the Volunteer Satisfaction Survey report...
Posted by Sam Thomas ( 5:18 PM ) Link to this post Comments[0]
Tuesday Feb 05, 2008
Using Facebook to communicate with volunteers
I went to the last meet up of the Charity Web Forum on Monday and took part in a discussion about using social networking tools to communicate with volunteers.
I think a lot of the discussion of social networking is often in a marketing context where the focus is on how social networking online can be harnessed to increase the reach of a project, campaign or organisation. However, I think one the most valuable ways in which a website like Facebook can help is by building community amongst already established groups or networks by setting up closed or secret groups.
From our standpoint the big attraction of Facebook was that most of our volunteers and project members were already there. A hurdle many online communities fall at when trying to reflect already existing networks is that not everyone migrates to the new place, splitting your community between those there and those not.
In a practical group communication management sense, I think Facebook has made a huge difference. In particular, this has been felt most in what I call more vertical forms of communication, e.g. where you need to get a newsletter out to a group, an invite to an event and track responses, etc. However, I think the jury is really still out on the more horizontal kind of communication, i.e. where everyone gets to talk and 'see' everyone. A lot of horizontal communications, such as group members contacting each other independently, is below the radar. This isn't a bad thing- but it can make it harder to gauge your community's activity.
Obviously the potential is huge for building community once you've got everyone together online in the same place on a website they may well be visiting regularly. However, whether your community is communicating to each other as much as it could is certainly debatable in most cases. For example, discussion boards and link sharing are consistently underused across groups on Facebook. Why so when the potential is so great?
- A big part of this is the lack of functionality (searching or tagging your info in your Facebook group is terrible or non-existant).
- Another part of this is that there's no get out clause- you can't back up your group or export your data easily.
- Finally, it's crucial to be continuing to include the non-Facebookers in your group- which can become more complex, the more you find yourself wedded to the Facebook platform.
For Facebook development of groups has hardly been a priority- but arguably it's one of their greatest success stories. Here's to hoping Facebook start getting a bit more socially aware :-) Posted by Patrick Daniels ( 12:54 PM ) Link to this post Comments[1]
Thursday Jan 10, 2008
Volunteering for the public domain
I'm always interested to see how volunteering is the motor behind making the internet a really valuable educational resource for all. Wikipedia is probably the preeminent example of this, however Librivox is another amazing example of this phenomenon of volunteering for the benefit of greater online knowledge."LibriVox volunteers record chapters of books in the public domain and release the audio files back onto the net. Our goal is to make all public domain books available as free audio books."
LibriVox was started in August 2005, by Hugh McGuire, a Montreal-based writer and web developer. More about him can be found at hughmcguire.net. Apparently LibriVox was inspired by AKMA's audio volunteer project amongst other projects.
As only books in the public domain can be read for Librivox, it means practically that mostly books published before 1923 are potential audio books. If you are an audio book junkie, you'll be amazed by how many books they have already- over a 1000 books on there for download. Librivox's growth is pretty phenomenal and has become one of the most productive publishers of audio books out there.
Apart from the volunteering element, what I think is ingenious about the project is its use of collaboration and partnership- the trump card for not for profits if managed well. In Librivox's case they partner with Project Gutenberg who have online text files of books in the public domain, and the Internet Archive and ibiblio.org who host the audio files for free that Librivox volunteers produce.
If you interested in volunteering for Librivox you can find more information here. Posted by Patrick Daniels ( 3:59 PM ) Link to this post Comments[0]
Friday Nov 16, 2007
Geeks volunteering: unseen and unheard
Technical enthusiasts, aka 'geeks' as they are affectionately known, have for many many years led the way in volunteering. As with many other examples of volunteering- these voluntary workers are very often unseen and unheard by most of us.
Who am I referring to? If you've ever used open-source software you've been the direct beneficiary of geeks volunteering- may be you use Firefox to browse the internet, may be you use Linux as your operating system. OK, then may be you don't.
But hey, volunteer geeks' work is all pervasive thanks to the web. Take it from me, if you don't use either of these pieces of software, it's more than likely a website you use uses servers that run on Apache (serverside software) or use open-source code like php, perl or python. But it goes wider than that, today the big players like Google and Yahoo use open-source software for more and more of their work.
In other words, when we're looking for volunteering success stories - the growth and influence of open-source software has got to be up there with the best of them.
Without evangelising about open-source software here, yada yada yada that's too boring. From a volunteer perspective, I'd argue it is really worth looking at the open-source model and why it's so successful. I think it can tell us a lot about what makes a volunteering project successful and what makes a volunteer manager successful too.
Open-source software defined by that open-source online encyclopedia better known as Wikipedia, is software that's freely available and free of charge. The fact that open-source stuff is free cost-wise often grabs the headlines, while the important ingredient is really that open-source stuff comes with freedom built in. Because you can see you code, you can see how it works, you can learn about it inner workings, ultimately you are free to change and adapt it in the way you need. This is the liberating point- you take the resource and use it in a way that makes sense to you, and not in a way dictated by a centralised power far away. Is this starting to sound familiar and relevant to volunteering?
Here we come to the first point to note- this freedom to adapt comes with a condition attached. You are free to change the code, but only as long as others are free to change your code. In other words, no-one can take and copyright the work of others as their own- and this way the work of volunteers is never abused and exploited. See more on GNU and Creative Commons licenses for a more in depth explanation of this stuff.
Lesson One: Share and Share Alike
The first lesson is that volunteering thrives in environments were we share and share alike. The moment a volunteer feels their hard work is being exploited is more than likely the moment they leave.
The second point is that all open-source projects have one thing in common- without their community of voluntary programmers they are nothing. The community is all important. With no one person owning all the rights to the code- everybody has a stake in the resource. It's a common asset. The door to getting a sense of ownership in the project is wide open.
What's more it's a virtuous circle- the more you're helped by others in the community with problems and understanding the computer code (the software), the more you want to help others. It's a phenomenon you'll see repeated in countless online forums and communities where the more experienced give up their time to support others.
These online communities have grown rapidly because they've built all sorts of collaborative tools that scale, i.e. the more people you involve as users, the more people you have who can one day become the supporters of the users of tomorrow. Wikipedia is a perfect example of this. The reason it can manage the ever increasing number of users adding entries is because there's also an increasing number of volunteers helping to moderate the content on the site. This link between users and volunteers is vital and it's something to ponder: how many volunteering projects really try to recruit volunteers from their user base?
Lesson Two: Opening Up Ownership To Volunteers
There's a second lesson in there for voluntary projects generally. How often do we find it hard to let go of a project we've developed ourselves? How often do we wonder why volunteers never progress beyond a certain level in their involvement with the project? The open-source experience would suggest a lot has to do with how much ownership we're happy to delegate and how 'open-source' the heart of project really is. Is it really all up for grabs to our most dedicated and committed volunteers?
The third and final point to make is about what motivates any of us to volunteer. There's many things- but for me personally it keeps coming back to one. Developers and programmers in the open-source world often talk about 'scratching their own itch'.
Talk to a geek volunteer and more than likely you'll discover their volunteering all started because one day they saw the answer to a problem. They didn't know whether it would work, but curiosity and necessity conspired to get them to try. Needless to say it worked and, hey presto, they became hooked on volunteering.
Lesson Three: Volunteering Is About Making A Difference
Doing something, however hard and challenging it is, is worth it when you can see the benefit, or when others let you know it's making a difference. From there on in, there are many routes it can take. It can become a burning passion, it can become a source of pride, it can even get the volunteer a certain amount of rewarding social recognition. But that initial hook is the belief that somehow, despite the odds, as a volunteer you are making a difference.
The final lesson then is that as volunteer managers one of the most important questions we can ask is: are our volunteers making a difference? The most important response we can give to this is not just to say "yes"- it's being able to add: "And our volunteers know it".
---------------
This was originally posted on the Association of Volunteer Managers
Thursday May 24, 2007
Government websites revisited
More than a year ago I posted here about the lack of information about volunteering on government websites. Given that promoting volunteering is a stated government objective and that it cuts across a huge amount of government work, it seemed reasonable to expect them to at least provide some basic help and links. Yet hardly any did.
Checking back, things don't seem to have improved. A keyword search on the Department of Health site still produces nothing helpful. Likewise the Courts Service and The Department for Work and Pensions,
On the site where someone ignorant of the remit of government departments might expect to find information about volunteering, the Department for Communities and Local Government , I can't find anything, even under the heading "Community cohesion." And here's what a keyword search produces.
Even on the site with formal responsibility for volunteering it would take a dogged user to find helpful information if you actually wanted to volunteer. Here are the keyword search results.
As I said last time, I might have missed something, but then so would other people looking for information. And if the sites are this bad for volunteering, how good are they for other information that people might be looking for?
The exception, now as a year ago, is the self-proclaimed "Website of the government" (known more commonly as "directgov"). It's easy to use, comprehensive and apparently made with users in mind. Try this result for a keyword search for volunteering. There's even a page with a link to do-it.
Of course, directgov has a different remit, but government departments really should learn from it. They could start by giving less prominence to speeches by Ministers and more thought to what members of the public might actually find useful.
Posted by Tom Green ( 8:17 AM ) Link to this post Comments[0]
Thursday May 17, 2007
Vital statistics
The volunteering world is ever so slightly obsessed with statistics. Funders always want to know who's doing what and why they're not doing more, and organisations want to show who they're reaching and who might be susceptible to a new campaign.
For years the most authoritative study was the National Survey of Volunteering, by the Institute for Volunteering Research (IVR). Conducted every ten years, it's a major survey based on random face-to-face interviews. The key finding of the most recent version was that 48% of the population had taken part in 'formal volunteering' (ie with an organisation) in the previous 12 months.
That figure always seemed very high to me. Can almost half of the population really volunteer every year? However, the Home Office Citizenship Survey 2003 (pdf) came up with a similar figure of 42% of the population doing formal volunteering.
What then are we to make of a new survey by The Samaritans? It found that "Many young people had thought about volunteering, but few had acted on it: 65.4 per cent of 16-24 year olds have thought about helping their community in their spare time, but only two per cent actually turn out and volunteer."
That's right, two per cent. Two!
Figures for young people volunteering have always been slightly lower than for the rest of the population, but the 1997 National Survey still found that 43% of all 18-24 year-olds undertook formal volunteering.
Clearly something is very different in the methodology. Yet if I ask myself how many people I know actually do formal volunteering, the percentage is probably close to what the Samaritans came up with.
Does any of this matter? Well, the focus on young people volunteering in recent years stemmed from a reported fall in their participation found by the 1997 National Survey. And no doubt organisations like v will be conducting surveys to find out how much impact their work has achieved.
A tip: if your organisations wants to show the impact of its work, use the Samaritans methodology before a project starts and then later switch to the IVR approach to demonstrate how much volunteering rates have increased.
Posted by Tom Green ( 9:48 AM ) Link to this post Comments[1]
Thursday Mar 22, 2007
Olympic angst and opportunity
As the debate intensifies about the cost of the London 2012 Olympics, I'm finding it hard to decide if they're the 'biggest overselling scam in history' or the source of 'unparalleled new opportunities' for sport and regeneration.
From a voluntary sector point of view, there has been reassurance from Tessa Jowell that their budgets won't be raided to pay for the Games, but some organisations are still seeking reassurance about possible reductions in Lottery funding.
What's beyond doubt is that the Olympics present a fantastic opportunity to get more volunteers involved in sport. Thousands have already registered their interest at helping out during the Games, and there are ways to get involved right now.
But can there be a genuine culture shift in terms of volunteering and participation in sport? Volunteers are already running much of the sport in this country but could more be done? I walk past empty tennis courts every day near my home and often wonder what it would take to get kids kitted out and playing.
An article for the BBC by Joe Wilson looks at how Sweden has achieved its recent success in athletics, and finds volunteers at the heart of things.
*On a freezing Monday evening I visited the Satra athletics hall about 10km outside Stockholm. The wooden beams of this huge hangar still smell fresh five years after being built. No-one has vandalised it, it stays open in the snow and it is full. There are at least 300 participants, all apparently under 16, and a host of coaches. In one corner, a 16-year-old girl is whirling around with the hammer, watched proudly by a huge man with a grey moustache. He turns out to be former national champion Bjorn Holmstrom. Holmstrom is not being paid to be here, none of the coaches are. The Swedish athletics transformation has been shaped by amateur enthusiasm.*
There are around 600,000 sports volunteers in Sweden out of a population of nine million. And the government's investment in new facilities must be an encouragement to turn off the TV and do something less boring instead.
There are already several initiatives underway to boost sports volunteering, some of which YouthNet is involved in. If Britain can come close to emulating the Swedes in the next five years that will be one Olympic legacy everyone will be able to celebrate.
Posted by Tom Green ( 4:29 PM ) Link to this post Comments[0]
Thursday Mar 15, 2007
Our survey says...
It seems to me that one of the great myths about volunteering in recent years has been that young people are reluctant to get involved.
It all started when the 1997 National Survey of Volunteering found a ‘sharp reduction’ in volunteering by people aged 18-24. With politicians eager to address the perceived alienation of young people, action was taken. First there was Millennium Volunteers and then the Russell Commission (leading to youth volunteering charity v).
I don’t know about the methodology of the 1997 research but we’ve just had the results of our latest survey of more than 700 users of YouthNet’s volunteering website do-it.org.uk, and it shows that 29.76% are aged 19-25, and more than 55% are under 30. Hardly a crisis of youth, and these results are in line with what we’ve found on do-it since we first started collecting data several years ago.
While YouthNet is a youth charity, the website is open to all and does not have any bias towards young people. So why are young people coming forward in such large numbers?
Or should I say ‘young women’. Only 21.39% of users taking the survey were male, confirming a gender split that has been apparent ever since do-it first started. Other interesting findings include the fact that 9.38% have a disability and almost 25% describe their ethnicity as something other than White British.
It’s hard to know why these results come about. Other surveys suggest that men and women are equally likely to volunteer and that people from ethnic minorities or with a disability are under-represented.
So is it something about applying online that increases access? Is that what has also made the difference for younger people? And what’s happening to all the men?
Answers on a postcard, please. (Or you could just post a comment.)
Posted by Tom Green ( 11:36 AM ) Link to this post Comments[0]
Monday Mar 05, 2007
V-inspired?
The new volunteering site, vinspired.com, from post-Russell Commission youth charity, v, is still in beta but that's perhaps the best time to offer some initial thoughts on the design and layout of the site.
YouthNet has worked with v to provide the search functionality on vinspired, and have also received grants from v, but I've not been involved in any part of the process and blog here in an independent capacity, so I'm coming to the site with no preconceptions or inside knowledge.
Let's start with the name. One of the benefits of the much-debated 'v' brand is the ability to put the letter in front of other words and phrases. In the context of the organisation 'v pleased to meet you', 'v excited' and 'vinspired' all work well.
Confusion might arise for people who've never heard of v, however. For example, what will football fans make of the hoardings at grounds at the moment simply stating 'vinspired.org'? Will it make enough sense to encourage them to find out more, or will they simply be confused?
This goes back to the debates around the branding of the organisation. On the one hand, young people say that 'volunteering' is an off-putting word. On the other, if you don't use it, people can be left with no idea what you're offering.
YouthNet's do-it.org.uk website has exactly the same problem, of course. One way to counter it, for us, has been to have a strapline – 'Volunteering made easy' - as part of our logo. On their homepage, v's strapline – 'Inspiring a million more young volunteers' is effective, but perhaps that message will need to be spread more widely.
Another area where confusion could arise is in the use of different urls. Vinspired.org is being used for a particular advertising campaign, but is it really a good idea to have it leading to a different site than vinspired.com? Perhaps that's just a beta issue, but there's also a third site: wearev.com, containing all the organisational information.
Moving on to the site itself, my first impressions of vinspired.com are positive. The colour palate is clear and restrained. The site feels modern and full of life and information. The search is prominent and easy to use. The navigation makes sense and the vquestions section seems comprehensive. I also like ability to search using vtags.
It's interesting that, like us when we redesigned do-it a few years ago, they've gone for a leaping man on the home page. The upside is that it's a neutral image that doesn't restrict the idea of what volunteering is. The downside, as we've been made aware many times, is that it doesn't say anything about what volunteering is.
The vcallback service – requesting a mentor to help you volunteer – looks like a real innovation, although the success of this, along with the blogs and forums won't be known until they've been up and running for several months.
A possible drawback with these new services and features is that the site gets a little cluttered. To my mind the homepage lacks focus slightly. My belief working on do-it.org.uk was that we didn't want anything to distract people from searching the database. That's the best way to learn about volunteering and what's on offer. Everything else is an extra.
There's also a problem using the site on smaller screens. On my lap-top, with the IE menu bar open, the right hand side of the site (including the search) isn't visible.
No doubt v will be adding to their site over the coming weeks and months, and tweaking it in various ways. It will be interesting to see how young people respond to it and how it develops.
Posted by Tom Green ( 11:53 AM ) Link to this post Comments[0]
Friday Feb 02, 2007
Virtual volunteering
We've just finished a new section of articles on do-it.org.uk (YouthNet's volunteering website) about virtual volunteering - opportunities that you can undertake from home.
We found some interesting case studies, including roles such as journalism, managing charity eBay eccounts and even writing to American prisoners on Death Row. Yet, there's a sense that this is an approach to volunteering that has still not taken off.
In America, where it's also known as online volunteering, projects have been running since 1997, and the United Nations volunteering service has had an online programme since 2000. But, despite TimeBank's efforts, there's still nothing comparable in this country.
There is a virtual volunteering category on the V-Base software that organisations use to upload their opportunities to the do-it database but until more virtual opportunities are created there's no point making it a searchable category on the website for potential volunteers.
Here at YouthNet , even though we've had some success with virtual opportunities of our own, we've learnt that they're not as easy to manage as you might at first think. In my experience, recruiting volunteer journalists, there's no problem getting people to sign up, but as few as 5% actually go on to write an article. And less than half that small number complete more than one assignment.
Perhaps I'm not a very effective volunteer manager, but I think colleagues have had similar experiences. It's very easy for someone to register for a virtual opportunity but very hard to actually get them started. It can be done, but it seems that, while virtual volunteering clearly has huge potential, it, like any other volunteering opportunity, still requires management time to succeed.
Posted by Tom Green ( 9:52 AM ) Link to this post Comments[0]
Thursday Jan 18, 2007
Starz in her eyes
Under David Cameron's leadership there seem to be three essential requirements for a speech by a leading Conservative politician. First, you must reverse traditional ideas about what the party stands for.
Cheryl Gillan, Shadow Secretary of State for Wales, did that this week with a speech to The Centre For Policy Studies. The thrust of her argument, was that Blair and Brown had created a selfish society. Margaret Thatcher, by contrast, knew "that economic freedom needs to be underpinned by a strong society, by mutual understandings and obligations".
Full marks for chutzpah.
The second requirement for a Tory is to come up with an eye-catching policy idea. Cheryl Gillan's was certainly innovative.
"...on behalf of David Cameron and the Shadow Cabinet, I am today submitting a policy proposal to Iain Duncan Smith and the Social Justice Policy Group. We would like Iain and his colleagues to investigate the idea of Volunteering Vouchers - taxpayers money which you can "earn" for the charity of your choice by volunteering for it. This would not represent an increase in spending, but a reallocation of existing funding. Rather than the state controlling this money, we believe that individuals and communities could be in charge of it."
Vouchers are a favourite cause of economic liberals, especially in education, but as Volunteering England have been quick to point out, the idea of money following volunteers is surely flawed.
Linking funding to volunteer numbers reflects a deep misunderstanding of volunteering and the voluntary sector. The number of volunteers an organisation involves is in no way a reflection of the worth of an organisation. Some organisations need to involve a large number of volunteers to carry out their work. Others very few. There is no logical reason for the latter to be punished by reduced funding. The same applies with roles that are by their nature harder to fill. Some roles, client groups or causes are always likely to be more challenging or less fashionable than others.
Never mind. At least Cheryl Gillan remembered the third requirement for a Conservative speech (or one by any politician, in fact): the awkward reference to popular culture.
There's a song in the charts at the moment by the singer Just Jack. It's called Starz in their Eyes - and it's a savage attack on the cult of celebrity, and the cynicism of a media which makes money out of the gullible dreams of the young.
The Arctic Monkeys are so last year.
Posted by Tom Green ( 10:19 AM ) Link to this post Comments[0]
Thursday Jan 04, 2007
Volunteers writing up a storm
Many voluntary organisations and community groups thrive on material written and led by volunteers. We at YouthNet benefit tremendously from a team of volunteer journalists and editorial assistants who come up with stories, conduct research, and write sparkling and informed articles for our websites. These volunteers are savvy, switched on and ready to rock the world. Just to show them off, I thought I'd share a few nuggets.
Naomi, a diarist on TheSite.org, gets a taste of hunger during Ramadan, while the rest of Yemeni life turns upside-down and potentially dangerous at times.
York students may have abilities comparable to the A-Team, but they're also a germ-ridden, horny lot, according to Lily, our former (twice!) Editorial Assistant.
Lauren, a freelance journalist who volunteers with our Editorial team on a regular basis, wonders whether celebrities are adopting overseas children for all the wrong reasons.
MySpace has become an unstoppable craze, according to another, Michele. (Mind you, TheSite has its own MySpace page, if you'd like to become our friend!)
And, the volunteers at Mental Health Matters get incredible support from the organisation, writes Olivia for our volunteering website do-it.org.uk, for the difficult work that they do.
Think you can do so well? We're always looking for more. ;)
Posted by Kirsten Olson ( 6:37 PM ) Link to this post Comments[0]
Thursday Oct 26, 2006
YouthNet's volunteer recognition party
YouthNet held its first official party especially for all our volunteers last week. In our eleven years as a charity, we've been fortunate to have many fantastic volunteers in both office-based and online capacities. Volunteers have contributed in a variety of roles, including online peer advisors to askTheSite, moderators on our busy discussion boards, online proofreaders to ensure our partners' volunteering opportunities are clear and engaging on do-it.org.uk, bloggers telling the world about their volunteering experiences, and a busy group of people helping in our office in our editorial, partnerships and fundraising team
s. Young people are also active on advisory groups, such as that collaborating with, advocating for and giving buzz to our Respect? campaign.
Both current and formerly active volunteers were invited first to our office in Islington,
All in all, it was a great evening! We'd like to say a big thanks to all of our volunteers. And, hope to see many of you at our next party – we'll keep you all posted.
If you'd like to check out YouthNet's current volunteering opportunities, chec
k out our Volunteer for YouthNet page. Or, of course, there's a whole range of opps waiting for you at do-it.org.uk!
Wednesday Oct 25, 2006
The cost of safeguarding
A slightly surprising group of people, ranging from former OFSTED chief Chris Woodhead to children’s TV presenter Johnny Ball, have written a letter to the Times to protest against the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Bill.
The Bill provides for a central vetting process built on the Criminal Records Bureau (CRB), with a new independent statutory Board which will take decisions on including someone on the barred list where evidence suggests that they present a risk of harm to children or vulnerable adults.
The worry for The Times letter signatories is that while it will do little to protect children, it will be another layer of bureaucracy to deter volunteers. In The Guardian, Marcel Berlins takes up the argument.
If the bill becomes law, I predict that the flow of good-hearted adult volunteers deciding to withdraw their time and effort will become a torrent - not because they have anything shameful or criminal to hide, but because getting vetted is an imposition too far, and an insult to those who, for years, have been gladly trying to improve the quality of children's lives. The result will be fewer sports, fewer youth groups, fewer outings, less tuition in things such as art and drama - all of which depend on a constant supply of eager volunteers.
It’s not entirely clear how the vetting process will differ from the current CRB checks. But the new body that the Bill seeks to create, the Independent Barring Board (IBB), certainly sounds like something George Orwell might have created. And there will be a new duty on organisations must report people to the IBB if they fail the “harm test” – i.e. that they might harm vulnerable children or adults.
Quite what the appeals process will be, I’m not sure. Could someone (volunteer or employee) be accused of some malpractice and reported to the IBB without their knowledge or the right to appeal? At least the CRB checks deal with actual convictions.
Naturally the children’s charities are in favour (the NSPCC calls it “significant step forward in ensuring that children are protected from people who may pose a risk to them”) but is legislation of this sort really the best way to deal with risk?
Posted by Tom Green ( 9:03 AM ) Link to this post Comments[0]
Thursday Oct 12, 2006
Risky business
On The Safe Side (.pdf file), a timely report by Kathy Gaskin from Volunteering England (VE) into risk, risk management and volunteering, managed to make it to the headlines of The Today programme on Radio 4 yesterday morning. Few will argue with the main conclusion:
There are widespread concerns that the sector is bogged down in bureaucracy and that measures are not proportionate to the level of risk. Organisations say that there is no flexibility in the system and that it is not an evidence-based system. People are becoming less willing to volunteer and expose themselves to risk, and are being deterred by risk management procedures and responsibility. There are serious anxieties about the future of volunteer involvement if strictures become increasingly rigid and volunteer roles continue to narrow. While accepting that old-style volunteering may be a thing of the past, there is real concern that applying to be a volunteer is becoming like job recruitment and the instinct to help out will be stifled by precaution and paperwork.
The only real solution is the application of common sense. Over-zealous risk aversion must be challenged. Excessive bureaucracy resisted. A new risk management tool kit (.pdf file) from VE should help. And they've set up a blog to discuss the subject.
Ultimately, as Kathy Gaskin says:
The overall assessment of the state of risk and risk management in volunteering in England is that there is concern but not a crisis. But there may be one if the drift to risk aversion continues. We need to carry out a risk assessment of risk management itself and decide which is the bigger risk.
Posted by Tom Green ( 9:45 AM ) Link to this post Comments[0]
Friday Sep 08, 2006
Volunteers or colonialists?
A few weeks ago overseas volunteering charity VSO kicked off a brief media panic about young people wasting their gap years.
"Some gap year providers seem to pay little attention to whether young people are actually making any long-term difference to the communities they are working in,"...said [Judith Brodie of VSO]. "It's an 'all about us' attitude. There seems to be a colonial attitude, whereby it is assumed that just because a young person is from the UK, they will be of benefit to their host community."
The Guardian asked volunteers what they thought and there were plenty of concerns, especially about volunteers without specific skills.
For someone interested in volunteering overseas, assessing the worth of organisations is a tough challenge . You can read all the information and speak to lots of other people but ultimately you are going to have to venture into the unknown (normally at a considerable cost).
It would be great if organisations could be regulated so that people knew that there contribution would be worthwhile but overseas development is such a complicated and controversial area that it's difficult to see how anything other than the most basic regulation can happen.
On YouthNet's volunteering website, do-it.org.uk, we (with a few exceptions) only list overseas volunteering organisations that are UK-based registered charities – that, at least, gives some measure of official approval. Hearing about other people's experiences is also incredibly useful – that's why do-it has an overseas volunteering blog. This post from is a reminder of what a great experience it can be.
I could write a million things about what we experienced in Nepal. Sitting on the floor and eating rice with our hands, Danni's beautiful open-air concert in Durbar Square, the elephants who's bristly thick skin made them appear a bit like giant long-nosed pigs, Paul's little fan club who he carried about, one on each arm... The football club, playing games with the little ones in Kathmandu, being fooled in to believing we have lice by the girls in Hetauda. Nepal was an experience none of us will ever forget.
Posted by Tom Green ( 10:08 AM ) Link to this post Comments[0]
Wednesday Aug 16, 2006
Opening doors to volunteering
A couple of pieces about volunteering that I spied in Third Sector today.
According to a guide recently produced by Volunteering England and Nacro, Involving Ex-offenders in Volunteering, we in the charity sector are generally not taking on volunteers with criminal records, regardless of the offence and the role.
We all recognise the value volunteering offers people from across society, and we're also aware of the risks inherent in involving new people in an organisation's activities, especially where there are direct links to clients. But it seems a shame to discourage folks who might well benefit from this experience, find a way to give back to their communities and develop their job options.
While we eventually pursued the equivalent of a CRB check in the staff recruitment for my former employer, a California-based affordable housing organisation, several of my colleagues who had offended years before were grateful for the opportunity to find meaningful work. And, they often did well; when from a similar community, they had an empathy for our tenants' challenges others did not always possess.
But then, we don't just volunteer to boost our CVs. According to a research project called "Doing One's Duty: A case study of volunteering in a deprived community", volunteers from poor backgrounds are more likely to do it to give something back. The study found that those who don't work because of disability, age or responsibilities at home are motivated by (non-monetary) philanthropy and to support their communities.
Posted by Kirsten Olson ( 11:34 AM ) Link to this post Comments[0]
Wednesday Aug 09, 2006
Reasonable lunch expenses campaign success
Well, they listened to us! Volunteer-involving organisational and volunteers alike protested the DPW's advice to volunteers on benefits about not claiming lunch expenses. And, they've now annnounced their withdrawal of this guidance. Justin Davis-Smith, deputy chief executive of Volunteering England, said:
This is great news as it lifts a barrier to the two million volunteers on benefits who were affected by the guidance. We're delighted that the DWP has listened to the views of so many in the volunteering movement and reverted to its original position which supports the Government's aim of opening up access to volunteering to disadvantaged groups.
I would like to thank all the volunteer-involving organisations, volunteer centres and individual volunteers who supported our campaign and were prepared to speak out against these discriminatory new rules. The response we received from our members and their networks was overwhelmingly positive and shows how a coordinated effort can create very powerful results.
Very good news.
Posted by Kirsten Olson ( 8:48 AM ) Link to this post Comments[1]
Monday Aug 07, 2006
Join right to reasonable lunch expenses campaign
As mentioned previously in this blog, the Department of Work and Pensions has recently published a booklet for volunteers who receive benefits, which states that they can't claim lunch expenses as they're already receiving money for food. You're in paid work, you get your sandwich paid for; you're on benefits, no can do. This is conflict with previously published guidelines and doesn't sit well with a more inclusionary approach to volunteering the government is advocating.
As you can imagine, the volunteering sector is none too pleased with this news. Volunteering England is continuing with its campaign to withdraw this guidance, and has announced a Protest Week starting 14 August. What can you do as a volunteer or volunteer-involving organisation? Post your lunch receipt, along with a note, to the Secretary of State The Rt. Hon. John Hutton MP at the Department for Work and Pensions. More details.
Posted by Kirsten Olson ( 12:12 PM ) Link to this post Comments[0]
Tuesday Jul 25, 2006
Lunch expenses campaign update
"Crusading" might not be a word that is often associated with Volunteering England but their response to the Department of Work and Pension's (DWP) recently published guidance on lunch expenses for volunteers in benefits has been loud and vigorous.
They've issued press releases, written letters and set up a special campaign page where visitors can follow the action and see if their MP has signed Diane Abbot's Early Day Motion.
The most recent letter is from Baroness Hanham of Kensington CBE, Chair of the England Volunteering Development Council, and the stakes have been raised. The letter is copied to DWP Secretary of State, John Hutton, and Third Sector Minister, Ed Miliband, but it is addressed to the Prime Minister.
On the basis of Home office and Department and Work of Pension figures we estimate that there are almost 2,000,000 people in receipt of benefits who volunteer. These volunteers are some of the most marginalised people in our society. For these people especially, volunteering has a major role to play in their lives and personal development. Volunteering enables people living on benefits to feel that they play a valuable part in the life of our nation, contributing to integration, community cohesion and social capital.
The issue pits two of Tony Blair's pet policy themes against each other - social inclusion (paying lunch expenses) versus attacking 'the benefits culture' (not paying them). Which one will win out?
Posted by Tom Green ( 9:42 AM ) Link to this post Comments[1]
Tuesday Jun 20, 2006
Money, money, money
Another volunteering-related challenge for the new Minister for the Third Sector, Ed Miliband. As well as needing to sort out the outcry over the latest advice on expenses for volunteers on benefits he now needs to deal with a public plea for more funds from Volunteering England (VE).
In a letter to the Minister published on the VE website, the organisation's Chief Executive, Christopher Spence, laments a significant short-fall in their most recent grant.
...the final settlement was 45% less than we asked for and included no allocation for three important strands of work, previously funded as projects, all of which have a direct bearing on Volunteering England's capacity to deliver the ambitious strategy for modernising the volunteering infrastructure nationally, regionally and locally outlined in Building On Success. Officials at the VCGU have also told us that this year there will be no project funding available to supplement strategic grants.
Spence suggests various ways in which money could be carried over and topped up, but it's hard to escape the feeling that there are hard times ahead. The government-funded volunteering sector has enjoyed boom times in recent years with organisations like VE, TimeBank and YouthNet the recipients of many millions of pounds. Last year, for example, around £7 million was spent on the Year of the Volunteer.
With the government as a whole now tightening its belt and new youth volunteering charity ,v, the main focus of attention, Ed Miliband could find that Spence's letter is the first of many that he receives from organisations that feel left out.
And with the Tories apparently putting the Third Sector at the heart of Compassionate Conservatism, don't be surprised to see volunteering sector leaders starting to flirt with that nice Mr Cameron.
Posted by Tom Green ( 8:45 AM ) Link to this post Comments[0]
Thursday Jun 15, 2006
Volunteers on benefits
Here's a challenge to test the metal of the newly formed Office for the Third Sector in the Cabinet Office: a new leaflet from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) says that volunteers on benefits cannot claim lunch expenses from their host organisation.
Travel expenses are OK but, for the DWP, the case against lunch money is clear:
Q: Why doesn't my normal lunch count as an expense?
A: Because the amount of Income Support or Jobseeker's Allowance you get is already meant to cover the cost of your basic needs, including lunch.
The problem is that payment of lunch expenses is widely recognised as good management practice - partly because you are asking volunteers to be away from their home and therefore buying lunch is an expense and partly because it's a very small perk.
In the past benefits offices have been more concerned about the number of hours that people spend volunteering, worried that it might stop them finding a job. Now, according to the leaflet, the DWP have woken up to the fact that volunteering helps people get paid work...but volunteers on benefits will have to bring a packed lunch (even though fellow volunteers, who might be in employment elsewhere, can get their lunch paid for).
Volunteer managers are, not surprisingly, up in arms - members of the UKVPMs network are urging people to write to their MPs. Volunteering England has also taken up the protest, pointing out that the new guidance "contradicts a recent NHS publication that was cleared by the Department for Work and Pensions/Jobcentre Plus, in which the chapter on reimbursement clearly states food expenses are legitimate expenses."
Last month, in his first speech as Minister for the Third Sector, Ed Miliband said:
"Volunteering creates a relationship between individuals and communities who would often never meet each other. Millions of people volunteer in our country but how can we expand the reach of volunteering to reach across communities, sectors, age groups and background? How can we build social cohesion and community among young and old, different faiths, different classes with volunteering and mentoring?"
Miliband's job is to co-ordinate third sector policy across government. How he deals with this expenses issue will show us whether his political muscle matches up to his rhetoric.
Posted by Tom Green ( 10:40 AM ) Link to this post Comments[0]
Thursday Jun 08, 2006
Happy talk
Is the voluntary sector in general and the volunteering sector in particular just too nice?
Reading through the report on yesterday's 'debate' in Parliament to mark Volunteer's Week is like wading through melted down sweets ("Would the Hon. Gentleman agree with me that volunteers are all absolutely marvellous etc"). Of course praise for volunteers is merited, but doesn't the subject deserve something a little more substantial from our legislators?
A lot of public money is spent on volunteering and the voluntary sector - not always wisely. There are continuous reorganisations of government departments overseeing the sector. There are difficult issues to confront about how far volunteers should encroach on work that might otherwise be done by paid staff.
Yet there seems to be little real debate on any of these issues either within the sector, from the media, or from MPs.
One of the tenets of good volunteering management is that the best way to reward volunteers is to take them and their work seriously – praise only goes so far. Perhaps the same approach should be applied to the sector as a whole.
Posted by Tom Green ( 2:37 PM ) Link to this post Comments[1]
Tuesday Jun 06, 2006
Age discrimination in volunteering
Volunteering In The Third Age and Volunteering England have launched a campaign against Age Discrimination in Volunteering.
They want organisations to sign up to commitments including that:
- Everyone wishing to volunteer should be able to do so, regardless of age
- There are no arbitrary age limits and no 'retirement age' on volunteers
- Where insurance cover for volunteers cannot be obtained beyond a specified age, organisations should search for other insurers.
It's a very worthwhile campaign, especially at a time when so much attention is focussed on younger volunteers.
Posted by Tom Green ( 10:31 AM ) Link to this post Comments[0]
Monday Jun 05, 2006
World cup volunteering
Yeh ok, this is a just a lame excuse to mention the World Cup. There is a real point I'd like to make though with this post. On the eve of one of the world's most high profile events, volunteers, as ever, are labouring under an incredibly low profile.
Over 15,000 volunteers have been recruited by FIFA since before January, and on do-it.org.uk we even did our bit to make sure there was a good representation of volunteers from the UK in Germany. If you're going we'd love to hear from you!It's interesting reading FIFA's approach to volunteering with footballing metaphors in bucket loads such as "kick-off training sessions" full of "team talks". Their FAQ answers with admirable clarity, the question that most prospective volunteers would probably be wondering:
Will I be able to watch the matches as a volunteer?
No. Many of our volunteer tasks take place well away from the stadiums.
I did learn one thing about the World Cup- apparently forget the football- the slogan for Germany 2006 is "a time to make friends". That kind of sums up the FIFA approach to volunteering- it's certainly not a "time to get into football matches for free".
Perhaps that slogan might give the UK delegation of volunteering MPs in the parliamentary football team food for thought? I'm sure they'd make friends if they gave their world cup tickets away. Whatever the rights and wrongs of their trip, our MPs demonstrate there is plenty of volunteering beyond the official FIFA variety. For example, there are 40 volunteers going with the Salvation Army to help raise awareness amongst fans about the exploitation of women trafficked into Germany.
If however you can't get to Germany in the next few days the great news is you can still volunteer to watch the World Cup. In fact you can do it from the comfort of your own couch. Now, who says volunteering doesn't offer something to everyone? Posted by Patrick Daniels ( 11:04 AM ) Link to this post Comments[1]
