Canterbury and Herne bay VC

Canterbury & Herne Bay Volunteer Centre

Our aim is to promote and develop volunteering within the Canterbury District in all its many facets including both the support of volunteers and volunteer involvingorganisations.

We achieve this by delivering the six core functions as identified by Volunteering England:

•           Brokerage ( matching both individuals and groups interested in volunteering with appropriate opportunities in the local community)
•           Marketing (stimulate and encourage local interest in volunteering and community activity)
•           Good practice and development ( promote good practice in working with volunteers to all volunteer involving organizations)
•           Development of voluntary opportunities (work in close partnership with statutory, voluntary and private sector agencies as well as community groups and faith groups to develop local volunteering opportunities)
•           Policy Response and Campaigning (identify proposals or legislation that may impact on volunteering)
•           Strategic Development of volunteering (As the local experts on volunteering VDAs inform strategic thinking and planning at a regional and national level)

We also run community projects (which utilise volunteers) which aim to improve the lives of people within the Canterbury District.
These include:

  • a Social transport scheme using volunteer drivers to take, predominantly, elderly people to medical and social appointments

  • the Healthy Homes and Healthy Minds project, which is a low cost gardening and home maintenance service.

  • A small befriending project.

  • A project researching barriers to volunteering

We also run a successful forum and network for volunteer coordinators.

We are also heavily involved with the validation and development of the Foundation Degree in Volunteering (working in partnership with Canterbury Christ Church University, Canterbury City Council and a number of voluntary sector partners).

We are also involved as part of numerous initiatives and fora such as: AGEWISE; the Local Compact Steering Group; Canterbury District Community Alliance.

We are working as part of the “Volunteering Works” programme (Sponsored by KCC Kent Volunteers) to engage effectively the Business Sector with the Voluntary Sector.  Another   strand of the “Volunteering Works” programme   includes working more closely with Job Centre Plus to raise awareness amongst Job Centre staff to encourage referral of their clients into volunteering. We will be implementing this strategy in 2012 within the Canterbury District.

We are a delivery partner in the Transforming Local Infrastructure bid lead by the Big Society Cooperative which is fully supported by Kent County Council.

We are active members of the Canterbury District Community Alliance.
We are also members of the East Kent Infrastructure Group;  the East Kent Volunteer Centre Partnership; the Kent & Medway Infrastructure Partnership; the Big Society Cooperative; the Volunteer Brokerage Network; Advice Partnership East Kent; Local Involvement Network Kent.

http://www.canterburyvolunteercentre.org/