David's Big Society

[bagpuss]

David has gone rather quiet on this one. Not much sign of anyone volunteering for very much recently. One of my Hampstead neighbours is bemoaning that when she tried to get people to give up a day for her fundraising event,thatthe response was decidedly chilly-which might have been down to the fact that the usual volunteers can no longer afford to give up a day's pay, or pay a childminder to allow them to volunteer......

[ducati]

I offered my services for free as a brain surgeon. I got a very chilly response. You just can't please some people!

[Trajan]

how about big davey cameron, to start the ball rolling,
im sure he could work a couple of days a week fundraising easily,he and andy coulson have done a pretty good job for the tory party of getting donations from all kinds of places,, not that they needed it,,big laird ashcroft could probally point yee in e right direction too, why dont you use your contacts bagpuss im sure you could make a difference for us poor caithness people.

[Gronnuck]

As a 'once apon a time' volunteer the reason I gave up was that I had to acquire a seperate 'Disclosure' for every organisation/activity I volunteered for. This proved costly for the organisations concerned or even for the individual. Things might have changed since the original Act in 1997 but I imagine lots of potential volunteers were put off or gave up. Why they couldn't have just done one all encompassing Disclosure at the time God only knows.

[squidge]

That's a rubbish reason gronnuck. I have had to have four disclosures in the last year. It does not inconvenience me. It does not cause me any problems. I know it costs the organisations concerned but they know and understand that without disclosures they may not have an organisation.

[Gronnuck]

That's a rubbish reason gronnuck. I have had to have four disclosures in the last year. It does not inconvenience me. It does not cause me any problems. I know it costs the organisations concerned but they know and understand that without disclosures they may not have an organisation.

Of course you're entitled to your opinion. When I was involved with a wide variety of voluntary activities and it became apparent that one discosure wasn't going to suffice the only conclusion I could draw from this arrangement was that it was a money making scam. I decided I no longer wanted to be party to an ambiguous system and was nearing retirement anyway.
I'm all for supporting volunteers and the third sector but when the bureaucrats dreamt up this disclosure system they clearly didn't think it through.