Page 1395 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 24 March 2010
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too long the word “volunteering” conjured up a vision of a person delivering meals on wheels or other services relating to what people usually describe as community or welfare work.
However, I will take this opportunity to remind members that volunteering is present in all parts of our lives. In fact a number of years ago some research undertaken by Volunteering Western Australia showed that any given extended family on any given week can receive benefit from up to 20 volunteers in that week. Members may doubt this but it did not take me long to come up with a list once I stopped to add it all up.
Older people are currently everywhere you care to look in the voluntary sector. They are alongside me as I plant trees out at the Cotter. They are making my visit to the museum or gallery much more interesting. They are working to protect and promote our built heritage. They form a large part of the community fire unit that I am a member of and of the second unit established in Hawker. They work at the RSPCA where Lola hails from and they are there at the Domestic Animal Service also, working with shelter dogs. They are rescuing and caring for wildlife and fostering homeless pets.
I believe that we as a community can further draw on the senior members of our community who wish to volunteer their time in the service of others. As I said, volunteers for too long have been seen as playing a role limited to community or welfare work.
One particular form of work, very prevalent but often ignored when it comes to counting the number of volunteers in any organisation, are members of boards and committees, and most of these are run by volunteers. Unlike boards in the private sector, these are not positions that attract any remuneration.
Because of the years of experience of finance or governance, for instance, or particular other expertise, many older people sit on more than one board or committee and spend enormous amounts of time preparing for and attending these meetings, as well as representing their organisations in other places, such as at conferences or in meetings with government. As I said, boards and committees can take up an enormous amount of time in an older person’s life.
The federal government, through Senator the Hon Ursula Stephens, Parliamentary Secretary for Social Inclusion and the Voluntary Sector, launched the golden gurus program in December 2009. Golden gurus is a new national program that started in January 2010 to provide mature-age Australians, aged 50 years and over, with a range of opportunities to support community organisations and small businesses.
There will be opportunities for mature-age people to take on a skilled volunteering role. This role could involve helping a community organisation to grow or helping a community organisation to deliver support to others; for example, by transferring skills and experience to people with a disability, to young people, to Indigenous Australians or to other people experiencing challenges in their life.
There will also be an opportunity for appropriately skilled mature-age people to take on a small business mentoring role. This role could include supporting a new small
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