With Volunteers Week closely overlapping with Carers Week this year, it has been all go for the team at Slough CVS!
Windsor Racecourse
Monday saw several SCVS team members and volunteers over at Windsor Racecourse promoting #OneSlough groups and volunteering as well as sharing information about the Wellbeing Friends Project.
Slough Community Forum
On Tuesday, we were welcomed by JMIC Mosque for the Slough Community Forum, and invited on a tour of the premises with a very informative talk by Shaista. One delegate said, “This is the first time I have entered a mosque and it was such a valuable experience, thank you!”
Delegates went on to hear from groups, The Slough Hub, Berkshire Vision and Slough Anti-Litter Society speaking about their experience of finding and retaining their volunteers. Tagreed Ismail spoke about feedback from the Voluntary Sector Survey and training and services available at Slough CVS.
Kinder Bassi introduced the Wellbeing Friends, who have been volunteering since the start of the project in 2020, thanking them personally and presenting them with certificates and a box of chocolates. Kinder was thanked herself by Slough CVS and presented with a certificate by Asma, for all her work on the Slough Carers Support project over the last five years.
A Slough Quality Protects Bronze certificate was also presented to Dolly Bhaskaran for Living in Harmony. Slough Quality Protects is a quality assurance programme, for local community and voluntary organisations to work through, to help them to demonstrate to users, staff, volunteers, sponsors, statutory organisations and influential bodies the quality of their services.
A Community Cafe style discussion followed with a discussion about what we can collectively do to improve volunteer engagement and retention and how we can ensure that our volunteer roles are inclusive.
Joanita Lwanga-Winfield (Community Outreach Manager, Younger People with Dementia CIO) attended the forum for the first time.
She said, “I would like to quickly extend my gratitude to you and your team on such a resounding success of the day! Absolutely phenomenal day spent in Slough, great contacts were made and above it all, the tour of the Mosque truly was such an enriching experience. Thank you for meaningfully bringing our community together!”
Volunteer Fair
The Volunteers Fair followed with over 20 organisations including The Slough Hub, Slough Anti-Litter Society, Berkshire Vision, Together As One, GoodGym Slough, Mind in Berkshire, Slough Town FC and Slough Libraries, SNAP and #OneSlough setting up in the JMIC courtyard ready to speak to residents.
Celebrating Carers Week in Cippenham
On Wednesday, Kinder and Shahid were invited to join Zhora and her volunteers and Carers at Cippenham Carers Group to celebrate Carers Week with some delicious fish and chips!
Improving Wellbeing through Volunteering
Tagreed also went along to two GP practices this week — Kumar Medical Centre and Langley Health Centre to talk about volunteering opportunities to patients and staff.
Did you know Research has shown that volunteering decreases risk of depression, anxiety and feelings of loneliness or that older people who volunteered at least 200 hours each year were less likely to develop high blood pressure? (From Carnegie Mellon University Research, 2013)