Wednesday, July 18th, 2007

2012 C&C Subgroup

This entry is not a complete reprisal of the 2012 Culture & Community SubGroup that met in Brighton on 3 July. Instead it will flag the main issue that need concern the network - the development of the 2012 Volunteering Strategy - and ask network members how they wish to respond?

The brief version of the story is that LOCOG commissioned a group (including VE, the Home Office and the Commission on the Future of Volunteering) to draft a Volunteering Strategy for 2012. This was due to be launched around about now but due to reasons not yet made public it looks as if the overall strategy document will not be adopted. There has not been, to date, a public announcement as to whether this is true or not or, if it has been dropped, why the strategy was not retained. There are are whispers of issues about diversity & equality and/or an unclear remit re: who was obliged to agree take up the strategy.

Whatever the reasons it now seems that the official approach to developing volunteers will be led by an internal group within LOCOG with responsibilities for workforce development and that instead of a fully stated strategy this group will produce a set of action points.

Three main issues were raised with the Regional representative from LOCOG on this front:

1. that grass roots volunteer agencies were being left in the dark as to how the original strategy was being developed and the fact that it was currently under threat;
2. that many local VCs were unclear as to whether they would be asked to play an active role in the recruitment and development of 2012 volunteers or whether they woud find themselves in competition with a regional body who bypassed them to recruit directly in their area;
3. that LOCOG should take a careful look at thier tendancy to say that they ‘have 70,000+ volunteers signed up’ as there is a notable difference between entering your email on a website five years before the event and actually showing up to volunteer!

No doubt the circumstances around the development and implementation of the 2012 approach to volunteering will change quickly over the next few weeks and we should take note of these developments. But members may wish to spend some time thinking about what we, as a group, need in order to properly assist with and benefit from what promises to be a once in a lifetime opportunity in our region.