Volunteer Centre Edinburgh

I first heard about IiV from Jean Cuthbert at the Volunteer Centre and I was very interested in the subsidy scheme from the Edinburgh City Council but I thought it would be too much work. Jean continued to re-assure me, provided excellent information and talked me though the process.

RNIB has been working with volunteers for many years so,  I wanted to evaluate just one small area of the organisation. At the time we were experiencing some real issues in the Cafe which resulted in complaints which I often had to step in and deal with. Volunteers would only stay for a short while, I was recruiting and training constantly and the volunteers were not happy.

Jean led a workshop on IiV with RNIB Managers, the Chair of the Board and some volunteers. This really got the support of everyone and kick started the process. We applied for and were awarded 90% funding which was the icing on the cake in winning the agreement of my manager.

The process was a lot of work but something which really needed to be done. Working towards IiV helped us to focus on and prioritise looking at how we work with volunteers. You know what it is like, if we had not been going for the award, the initiatives we wanted to do may never have got done. Jean was on hand to support us all through the process and helped us to see things from a different perspective.

The effect of gaining the award has been fantastic. RNIB cafe now have a regular volunteer forum at which volunteers can make suggestions, raise any issues or concerns. Some of issues may seem quite trivial but are very important to the volunteers e.g. portion sizes. As a result of one forum meeting the need for new cash till was raised. The old till was overly complicated and difficult for anyone visually impaired. We discussed the options with our volunteers and we now have a very simple till which meets the needs of the cafe but is much easier to use. Getting everyone together in one place has resulted in the volunteers being much more sociable and communicating freely.

When we recruited a new Cafe Manager IiV prompted us to discuss volunteer management as part of the interview process. As a consequence, we have a new Cafe Manager who is completely committed to volunteer management. There have also been development opportunities for the new cafe manager in recruitment, training, supporting and motivating our volunteers. This has had a knock on effect and is beginning to change the culture of the organisation.

The volunteers are now visibly much happier and speak up when they have a problem. The atmosphere is totally different and we haven’t had any volunteering vacancies for over 2 months.

There have been other positive changes made in the cafe such as more choice and variety and as a result more staff are using the cafe. The volunteers suggested preparing more perishables daily rather than buying them in and this has saved money and waste. The cafe did the catering for the RNIB volunteering social and received very positive feedback.

I would thoroughly recommend other organisations going for IiV.