Thank you volunteers! We want to hear from you.
1 August, 2021
We love our volunteers! You keep us in the game. So, a big welcome to Lynden Courtney, Frank Kinnersley, Deb Macer and Dr Danielle Orr who’ve just joined us as volunteers.
Currently more than 20 people across the region have found their own place volunteering with us. They come from different walks of life and bring different skills. We’re having fun figuring out how to make the most of their talents.
So it’s super timely that we’ll begin working this Spring with Volunteering Victoria to help make their volunteer experience a little bit special. We’ll be inviting all our volunteers to be involved and have their say.
We’ll be inviting all our volunteers to help shape what our program looks like. Are we giving you enough scope to have an impact? Where do you need support? How would you value being recognised?
Volunteering Victoria has more than 400 members including organisations as large as The Red Cross and as small as community groups like ours. According to the peak body’s state program’s manager, Sara Sterling, they’ve seen pretty much all the challenges faced by volunteer groups.
Sara and Volunteer Victoria recognise that a big challenge is a wide divergence of expectations. Volunteers come with different work experiences and different expectations about what volunteering means. It’s for that reason that Volunteering Victoria puts a lot of emphasis on systematically gathering data about volunteers’ expectations before it starts helping out.
Our volunteers will be working with the peak body courtesy of a super helpful $2K community grant from Mt Alexander Shire Council. CMRT was less than 10 months old when Mt Alexander accepted our proposal. The council and their grants staff have shown some serious faith in us. We won’t forget that.
If you are a CMRT member and want to make a difference please reach out. Drop us a line at volunteer@cmrailtrail.org.au.
We like our volunteers to be members too. We think that gives you more skin in the game.
We’d love to have a chat with you about how you’d like to help. First up, we’ll ask you whether you’d prefer to make a difference by volunteering as a:
- casual volunteer such as at stalls or public events; or
- regular or project volunteer in the community or behind the scenes