Monday Morning - Igniting Community Spirit

The Centre for Volunteering - what a team!

I met with Lynne Dalton, CEO and Kristin Romanis, Communication Manager and Maia Giordano, Youth Volunteer Program Manager. Lynne is known as one of the most authoritative figures in the volunteer world. Her organisation set up and sponsors the volunteer conference to celebrate the successes and achievements of the volunteers in corporate, youth and over 60 sectors. I attended this event on my arrival last week at Parliament House and it was certainly successful in 'igniting community spirit' - the slogan for The Centre for Volunteering. Lane Beachley won the ambassador award and many other special people were honoured. Last year there were 170 entries, this year 445 - next year who knows?!

The team gave generously of their time and knowledge so that I will have plenty to populate my report at the end of the project. This will be published on http://www.wcmt.org/ for organisations that need information on how to recruit, retain, recognise and reward volunteers and mentors for young people.

After this meeting I met with a Winston Churchill Fellow from 1992 who again was very generous with his time, kindness, enthusiasm and help - a very BIG THANK YOU to the Superintendent Ian Krimmer of the New South Wales Fire Brigade pictured above. Ian has already been extraordinarily kind and shared his experiences of his Fellowship which investigated fire setting by young people in the US and UK and was highly significant in making changes to the way this problem was tackled.