... to think the gov can eff off if they think I'm going to do voluntary work?

[woollyideas]

I'm really fed up with reading about this hypothetical army of volunteers who will run our libraries, patrol school crossings etc., etc. as part of the old Big Society thingmy. AIBU to think that if I was to be made redundant due to government cuts, I would prefer to lie in bed a bit later than usual, write, paint, read, bake cakes, stick two fingers up to the Condems, etc., after 30-odd years of working? Or do you think I should just pop along and be an unpaid slave happily work for nothing in a local school or something worthy?

What would you do?

I'd actually really like to volunteer and keep my brain active and my skills up to date. Now, who will volunteer to look after my pre-school child for free while I do so?

Big Society = Load of vapid nonsense without substance or deep thought...

'but IF you are claiming benefits then effectively aren't you being paid for any voluntary work that you do?'...
Would you accept being paid £1.63 per hour??..when you are claim benefits you suddenly become the property of the state???...

Fair enough fgr

where does it stop though? Volunteers to run preschools, care homes, surestart centres - all of which are under threat at the moment as well as museums and libraries

And as worthwhile as volunteering can be, it only works as long as there are funds allocated to pay to keep things going. Take libraries for instance. People might volunteer their time, but they won't be able to pay the electricity or water rates, or to buy any new books or pay for any maintenance that needs doing in the building.

"would they also be willing to volunteer cleaning shit off of the arses of the elderly and disabled?"

Mum might well have been back in the day. She wouldn't help to counsel drug users because she knows nothing about that. You are very rude and dismissive about their efforts and contributions They might be 'pleasant' but they still take time and effort.

the ridiculous thing is that grants to voluntary sector organisations are being cut

not exactly joined up thinking is it?

bloody ridiculous

I ran a voluntary service offering support to families whose relatives suffered from dementia a number of years ago. Believe me, it was no mean feat recruiting people, checking out references, CRB checks etc, effectively to visit those who would have forgotten who they were an hour afterwards.

I was very lucky to get a wonderful range of people from all walks of life which is vital - but sustaining a service is a different matter. People volunteer for so many different reasons, to improve their prospects of paid work, because they have issues themselves and even truly altruistic people of whom there are not many.

It's bloody hard work doing this, believe me, and I was paid to do it.

Perhaps Mr Cameron might wish to practice what he preaches and nominate someone from the cabinet to "volunteer" in his/her role and donate their salary to the Big Society's Charity of the Year. Mr Clegg...?

People have always volunteered. National trust, charity shops, cafes in a number of hospitals, some mountain rescue, all run by volunteers.

The problem becomes when vital services are cut and the goodwill of volunteers is relied upon. In that case, it isn't voluntary anymore, is it?

I think if you are unemployed single person or unemplyed with children at school then you should be forced to volunteer, or lose benifits.

However on the bigger argument I do not belive voluntary work should be used to replace paid work ie, people bein made reduntant and their jobs then relaced with volunteers, that is very demoralising for those who are being made redundant. I would ot want to see anyone out of work as a result of mass volunteering.

It takes loads of time recruiting volunteers, mentoring them, chasing them if they don't turn up , organising training, crb checks etc
all this is currently done by paid people
who will do it when those people are made redundant?

What nobody mentions is that volunteering can be very stressful. I recently gave up a volunteer role because it was making me ill with stress me and was having a negative impact on my paid work and my home life. In some volunteering roles you can be even more responsible than the paid staff or your own paid work, such as management committee roles ect. Big society want organisations to go it alone but in my experience you need the safety net of a local council or some other statutory body. Voluntary organisations can get into such a mess and it is pure hell for the ones who are tasked with sorting it all out - for free!

My sister was recently approached about a really excellent role in a VO organisation, would have looked good on CV and all that, and I talked her out of it, I told her within six months she would hate it, every hour she spent on it would be an hour she would not be with her kids and her husband, as a working mum her time is precious.

My advice, think very carefully about any volunteering you do. Attempting to be selfless, can cost you a lot. Properly paid staff to do work that needs to be done in my book.

That said, I do my best to support school PTA as they make lots of things possible for the children that couldn't happen with staff alone.

What I fail to understand is that if people are having to volunteer work for their benifits, where do families who require childcare come into that.

You have to volunteer for x hours to get benefits, but the only way you worked in the past was by paying for childcare out of your wages... ergo no childcare,you can't join in the "big society".

imo it's pure political ideology poorly thought out by those who have never needed care provided by any of the welfare or charity sectors, and as such have no knowledge or understanding of these. AND QUITE FRANKLY DON'T GIVE A TOSS!

But to be fair the OP mentioned "who will run our libraries, patrol school crossings". Neither of which would be offensive or unpleasant to most people. Or are they not real enough?

BTW I don't deny that there are jobs that should not be done by volunteers and probably wouldn't be. But to dismiss those who have provided a cushion to many communities over the years with small unnoticed gifts of time and work is small-minded and a little ungenerous.

Excellent point bullet234.

"And as worthwhile as volunteering can be, it only works as long as there are funds allocated to pay to keep things going. Take libraries for instance. People might volunteer their time, but they won't be able to pay the electricity or water rates, or to buy any new books or pay for any maintenance that needs doing in the building."

coming back to FilmBuffMum's point about leading from the front (which I very much agree with) part of the problem is that businesses do not lead from the front in that they do not behave as if they are responsible for people's lives.
If we lived in a society in which all institutions, profit-making or not, acted as if they had responsibility for people's welfare (not sacking loyal employees just to save money in the short term, not destroying a community by outsourcing jobs just to pay a bigger dividend to shareholders) people might be more inclined to volunteer when there's nothing in it for them; from what people have said I think a lot feel a bit like they are being taken for suckers by the expectation that they would work for nothing.

Mmmn, I have actually sat back from the PC for several minutes, just thinking about this one.

My thoughts in no particular order:

While teaching in state-schools for many years I would have laughed out loud if anyone had suggested that I spent my spare time volunteering. All my effort, energy, hours and hours of my time in the evening, at weekends and during the holidays...it was all spent trying to provide a service to children. Any spare time whatsoever was for me and my husband.

I was a keen Brownie, Guider and Brownie 'Pack Leader' when I was growing up and vaguely imagined that I might run a Brownie Pack or similar myself one day. Logically, I should be - I grew up in the Guiding movement, I have a CRB check, I have skills in working with children...Yet I just can't see myself taking on the additional stress - see the thread about the letter from Cubs to understand why. I look back and am amazed that my leaders gave so much time and effort for relatively little appreciation, and that was before the requirements for paperwork, risk assessments etc were on the horizon.

There are many different kinds of volunteering. A few years ago my MIL was interested in doing some volunteering connected with children. She contacted the local branch of a well-known childrens charity. There was polite astonishment that she could not attend a meeting at 11 am on a Thursday because she was working. This branch was clearly stuffed full of wealthy wives on the coffee morning circuit. The generation where people were in a position to live like that is passing, but is still somehow in the collective consciousness of decision makers.

I am also intrigued by the idea that 'doing your bit' is simply volunteering for the school that your children attend. Would volunteers be willing to go to the less-lovely school down the road? Or even to volunteer in the school after their own children have left?

Although volunteers need to be motivated by interest, the fact is that there are services out there where the users and friends/family just do not have the skills or ability to volunteer. They are the services for the truly needy and disposessed.

I do currently volunteer as a bf peer supporter and often feel quite angry about my volunteer status from a feminist point of view - why is this women's health issue not seen as sufficiently important for paid support?

However....

There was a time when I was working in an office-based job when I could get on the tube and be home to my shared flat by 6.30, work done for the day. I was fit, young and had no commitments. I spent evenings relaxing, reading, eating my meal, watching TV. Why shouldn't I have spent one evening a week doing something for other people?

Also, it is very possible to 'professionalise' volunteers. To be a bf peer supporter you need to train for a period of time, sign a code of conduct and attend regular supervision. The CAB also run a very extensive training programme. But often people who want to volunteer don't want to fit into that kind of structure. Plus it needs someone to lead all that, as has already been said on the thread.

Personally I want trained people to run some of my essential services eg local forest,libraries,help out in schools etc.

Also I can't wait to see them attempt to get all these volunteers having being on a committee of an "outstanding" pre-school.We struggled to get enough people to volunteer just to be on the committee in order to keep said pre-school running.

Year after year we were at risk of closure for the sheer lack of bums on seat at meetings. Parents are juggling children,childcare, jobs and family life.

Now if parents are at direct risk of loosing an "outstanding" pre-school education for their dc and can't find the time not entirely sure they'll be hotfooting it down to their local library and forest in order to keep it open. Doing a job your neighbour has been booted out of doesn't exactly make it a must do activity either.

Pensioners are going to be working longer due to the incredibly high cost of living and will be far more tired and less inclined to "volunteer".

I also think an awful lot of us will think you've taken my cb,my forests,my libraries,are hurting my kids schools,have made family life harder with your high inflation if you think I'm bailing you out by volunteering you can f**k right off especially when you'll be bogging off to Checkers to kick back and relax in your free time Mr Cameron.

The sheer partronising cheek of this policy is just astounding.

"would they also be willing to volunteer cleaning shit off of the arses of the elderly and disabled?"

Yes some people already are. I have through voluntary work cleaned lots of disabled teenagers shitty bums. Accept that many would not want to do this.

It is obvious that some of what Dave Cameron is talking about, is simply to save money. However, I am getting annoyed at people's assumptions about volunteering.

1. People in paid work are MORE likely to volunteer than those not working e.g. unemployed, retired, ill and disabled. You may feel you have too busy a life to volunteer; but others with children and full time work do volunteer - so don't assume they won't.

1. Some volunteers are perfectly capable and willing to take on responsibility, be reliable and take on challenging roles. Jobs currently delivered by volunteers include lifeboat rescue, magistrates, childline, school governors, supervisors for lunch clubs, conservationists, curator of small museums, co-ordinator of a community centre,relate counsellor, guided history walks, etc.

Just because you wouldn't want to volunteer and be reliable and responsible, does not mean that everyone feels like this.

1. Some people volunteer short term because they want job experience, to meet new people, something to do, etc. But most people who stick with it for years do so because they really care about the service and the people they provide it to.

They don't want people to be homeless or for children to have no organised club activities. Of course they will be getting something back e.g. enjoyment; but for many their primary reason is altruistic.

MilaMae I am sure lots of the work done in your local forest will be done by voluinteers.

Those people are fabulous, Lesley.

But the 'Big Society' really make more of them?

but you're not doing it for no money .. you're doing it for the benefits you are getting ...
tbh, I don't know the finer details of the proposals, but nope of course I wouldn't be happy to be made redundant and then go and do the same job for £60 a week - however, I think my hackles were raised a bit (& I haven't read every single post) by the initial post implying that actually it might be nice to just claim benefits and not doing anything for a while!
By the way, (to reply to another post) I work in the City and actually City institutions and individuals make millions upon millions of pounds of charity contributions annually .. just because the media choose not to publicise that fact, doesn't mean that it's not so!
1 brokerage donated £12m in one day just before Christmas, this is an annual event that has donated close to £80m since it started about 6 years ago

If you are compelled to volunteer, it ceases to become volunteering, and that really is as simple as that. It is impossible to volunteer in return for benefits.

Also, the Government are making the classic mistake of assuming that volunteering is free. It is not. Certainly volunteers provide millions of pounds worth of support and service - but there is a cost attached to managing and supporting them.

I'm a paid fundraiser for a small charity, and I just don't know where to being with all that is wrong with the Big Society policy. I rant about it on a daily basis. It really is just the most ridiculous idea.

At the moment but it's managed by the FC,as I understand it the gov want local groups to manage said forests.

That is a huge responsibility. I want experts in foresting running my forest not some pensioner who has to bone up on trees on the internet.

My dp has done masses of volunteering for the BCTV?group. They had highly trained accountable people leading the groups with clear objectives and expert advice.

Sorry but a local volunteer group is not going to be as accountable or knowledgeable as the FC or BCTV.

Also I've dealt with volunteers when teaching and sorry they are not as reliable and as good in quality as properly trained,interviewed,payed TAs. They simply aren't. You get fantastic volunteers but you also get some who aren't and schools are going to have to tolerate less quality staff just to have the help they need.