Skip to main content

Posts

Evaluation meeting in Brno

Maybe you remember, that in November we spent some time at the castle in Bartošovice. During the Volunteer Boost training course, we dealt with the topic of volunteer management and coordination. Since that time, two months passed, so we met again in the middle of December with 12 of our lovely participants and trainers to evaluate our progress in given field, this time in Brno. The evaluation meeting lasted two days, during which we found out the impact of the training on our daily work within our organizations while using various non-formal methods of learning. Nevertheless, it was no the only task we had. As we created very well working team, it would be a pity to not continue in this cooperation. That is why we spent one whole afternoon by follow-up planning of future projects. Moreover, you can expect the booklet full of advice and tricks on how to effectively work with volunteers, which is coming very soon, also via our Facebook page. The official program took place in our s
Recent posts

Summary of the training course

On 6/10/2017 33 people from 9 countries (Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Greece, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia and Sweden) met in a castle in Bartošovice, Czech Republic. They came to participate in a training course “ Volunteer boost ” organised by a NGO “ Brno for you s.z. ” and co-funded by European Union under the frame of Erasmus+ programme. For 8 days participants dealt with topics related to volunteering and volunteer management, e.g. recruitment and selection of volunteers, conflict management, active listening and volunteer recognition.  Main idea of the project was to build capacity for youth organisations in Europe working with, or involving volunteers in their daily work and activities by providing professional volunteer management competencies to their youth workers and trying to involve as many and as various organizations as possible. The project was facilitated by certified youth worker and experienced trainer Cosmin Catana and Project & Communic

7. DAY: Evaluation, Follow-up

Unfortunaltely  this is the last day of the project, the last day in Bartošovice. We started the day with a small group session about European  voluntary service,training courses and youth exchanged  .Each participant had the opportunity to write down on a sheet of paper ideas about a future project that he/she would like to coordinate and participate.Then we continued the day with one last sessions about Follow up and dissemination .. We tried various methods of spreading the result of the projects – we spilt in groups about video recording, brochure and press release translated in several languages. After this we all completed the evaluation of the project and we have the chance to speak into circle  what we like to bring home   and to make some suggestions to the future projects. We ended the day with youthpass certificates awarding. It's a pitty that the time was so short and it was a really pleasure to meet and colaborate with all of you and we will really miss you

6. DAY: Motivate, recognize, monitore, evaluate the volunteers!

Day 6 started with an administrative announcement about lunch. Afterwards we went outside to take a group photo in a sunny place. Everyone will have really small eyes J we did an energizer with Sona who made us move a lot, we really woke up a little bit. We were energized enough for the next task: we split in order to prioritize the reasons why people are volunteering. After gathering back in the big room and talking about it, we had the MCCLELLAND’S test for finding out what our motivation is. Marty energized us with the house song and I think everyone woke up after those really loud screams. After this, Sorin got the floor talking about the recognition of the volunteers and grouping us to find out our ideas of recognition. Sorin’s beautiful assistant Cosmin is now having the floor showing us videos with EVS volunteers. The other beautiful assistant, Sorin, is now back on the stage explaining us how the monitoring is working. And now Romania is having the floor because of this coo

5. DAY: Inspiration from S.T.O.P., volunteer expectation management

The day started with review of previous day. The previous day was field activity which includes study visit of Ostrava. People were divided in group of 4/5 and asked to explore city. Couple of groups was given a task to explore and visit local NGOs and municipal services. The trainer Cosmin asked about local nonprofit Organization NGO named ADRA, Alessandro and Beston explained the objectives and activity of ADRA From this review the next activity was pretty much related. A successful local NGO named S.T.O.P  was invited as Guest to share the idea and experience of their organization Mgr. Ivona represented her Organization S.T.O.P. and talked about basic ideas of freedom/tolerance/equality/opportunity which makes the basis of their organization. She explained the projects which includes lectures/Education for children of socially unstable/poor conditioned families. The volunteers visit their homes and with consent of parents and STOP officials, start helping in subjects o

4. DAY: Make a research in Ostrava!

The group departed for Ostrava for a study visit and a bit of city exploration.  We were separated in 5 teams and we were assigned to interview random local people from different ages groups, asking them 3 questions regarding volunteering to find out if they were familiar with the term or if they had volunteered by any chance. Each group had an extra different task like visiting a hospital, a local NGO etc. and ask if they need volunteers to cover their activities. Every unique group had different experiences and their own challenges. We also had free time to enjoy a decent cup of coffee. The bad weather didn’t distract our great mood and we continued enjoying our trip. Getting back to the venue, the majority was exhausted while other took the advantage of the free evening to play board games. Author of the article: Filipe (Portugal)

3. DAY: Recruiting the volunteers, supervision

We started our third  day with a game of energizers activities, to be well awake :). The game consisted of our ability to act quickly and accurately. We went on to the subject of  recruiting and selecting  where we learned the basic way of interviewing someone and what is important to keep in mind when interviewing a volunteer. After this first period  we had  our pause for coffee . After  the break  we were divided into groups and each one was given a task, in which we would somehow have to put up an advertisement for the hiring of a volunteer (newspaper, radio, Facebook etc). Before lunch each group presented their work. At one we had our lunch break . In the afternoon, and after our announcements we prepared ourselves to interview our candidates with real interviews. After all groups were done Cosmin gave us his feedback, with tips to improve the way we interview  our volunteers. Before the afternoon break each of us had to wright down on a piece of paper what was our opinion of e