1. Finding
Our
Voice
Conference Programme
23rd October 2013
Regus, 1 Ropemaker Walk London EC2Y
Map
9HT (9th Floor)

2. Programme
0930
Registrations Open
Refreshments served
Sign up for workshops
Conference is chaired by Rachael Bayley,
Head of Volunteering, Save the Children
1000
Welcome Address
Heather Baumohl
Chair of Association of Volunteer Managers
UK Room
1015
Opening address - Finding Our Voice!
Fiona Dawe, CBE
Consultant, Coach and Facilitator
UK Room
1030
Workshops:
a) Learning from volunteers about
volunteer management
Helen Timbrell, Volunteering and Community
Involvement Director, National Trust
UK Room
Heather will provide a review of the Association during the last year and outline its
future directions.
In this two part session Helen first shares experiences of conducting surveys of
volunteers by sharing the approach used at the National Trust. Focussing on headline
results from the NT she will share the way in which these results have supported
cultural change around volunteering in the organisation and driven improvements in
volunteer management.
The second part of the session shares learning from working with Wally Harbert, an
experienced volunteer and author of Baby Boomers and the Big Society, and
discusses how qualitative research with volunteers can help improve volunteer
management and shape organisational thinking around volunteering.
b) Connecting, Learning, Sharing
Germany Room

3. Sue Jones and Chris Huffee
Join Sue and Chris as they provide an overview of some of the leading networking
tools for managers of volunteers; including how to make the most of the dedicated
Volunteer Management weekly tweet chat and discussion known as Thoughtful
Thursdays #ttvolmgrs
The session will cover why it is important to connect, learn and share on-line and to
help make this meaningful and relevant to your role.
c) The value of volunteer managers
Rob Jackson, Independent Consultant
Argentina Room
1140
Comfort Break and Networking
Please take this opportunity to meet new colleagues.
1200
Panel Discussion – Volunteer Engagement
versus Volunteer Management: have we got
the emphasis right for the future?
Ruth Bravery, Director of Volunteering and
Community Involvement at Marie Cure Cancer
Care
Steven Howlett, Academic and Author of
“Volunteer and the Society in the 21st Century”
Tiger de Souza, Head of Volunteering at
NSPCC
UK Room
Chaired by Nikki Squelch, Head of Volunteering Development at the
Alzheimer’s Society.
Lunch
Reception Area
1300
In this workshop Rob will guide you through some context about the role of leaders
and managers of volunteers in the 21st century as well as give you some key facts
and figures about the value VMs bring to their organisations. Through discussion in
small groups you will explore how you can make the case for VMs in your organisation
and consider the key actions AVMs and peers could take after today.
Nikki will introduce the panel members and they will share their insight then we
will open it up to the floor for questions, comments and reflections.
UK Room: AVM AGM from 1300 to 1320
Special Lunch Session:
Collecting Data, Lessons from Volunteer
Counts
Roger Parry, Director of Agenda Consulting.
Argentina Room 1315
Please take you lunch

4. A – UK Room
B – Germany Room
C – Argentina Room
1400
Workshops:
a) b) and c) repeated – same as the morning
1510
Comfort Break
1530
Plenary Session
Chaired by Racheal Bayley
UK Room
Closing Address
Heather Baumohl
UK Room
1600
The workshop leaders will be welcomed to present the key points, issues and themes
that emerged from their workshops
Official finish
1610 1700
Fringe Sessions – as requested by the
members who asked for a full day.
Germany Room
Personalisation Agenda – a discussion lead by Nikki Squelch from the
Alzheimer’s Society to consider the impact that personal budgets and the call for
community involvement will have on volunteering.
Argentina Room
Defining the profession – Lead by Debbie Usiskin and Heather Baumohl
When we talk about professionalisation we mean the movement towards self
governance of standards and practice. Professionalisation raises standards of
practice by raising the capacity of practitioners and facilitates the development of an
infrastructure that fosters genuine professional development and career long
enhancement of the capacities and contribution of each individual professional
practitioner.
By the end of this session we will have started the ball rolling and begun to lay out the
principles of a code of professional practice for managers of volunteers

5. About our speakers and presenters
Fiona Dawe has her own consultancy, Vital Space, and is a Coach, Facilitator and Thinking Environment TM
Consultant, enabling individuals, groups – indeed whole organisations, to think really well for themselves, as
themselves. She is also an advisor to the Paul Hamlyn Foundation’s Social Justice Committee. Fiona’s 30 year career
in the voluntary sector started by being a full-time CSV working with young offenders. She then worked at CSV,
OUTSET (employment and training in IT for people with disabilities) and Volunteering England. For 11 years until April
2011, she was Chief Executive of YouthNet, the UK’s first not-for-profit dot.com, which runs TheSite.org and Do-it.org.
In 2008 they won The Charity Times “Best Charity to Work For” and she firmly believes The Thinking Environment was
a key success factor. Volunteering has always been central to her life and she has served on a wide variety of boards
and advisory groups. Currently she is a trustee of the Windsor Leadership Trust, the Charity Technology Trust, and
Changemakers. She was awarded the OBE in 2003 for services to the Voluntary Sector and the CBE for
services to volunteering in the New Years Honours List 2012.
Rachael Bayley is the Head of Volunteering Development at Save the Children UK. She leads on developing the
volunteering strategy, framework and culture to ensure volunteering is embedded across the whole organisation. She
originally moved into the sector (from investment banking) to be Director of Service at Volunteer Reading Help.
Rachael was the Director of Volunteering at CSV (Community Service Volunteers), where she led a team of 15,000
volunteers who are supported by 28 staff. Rachael has also been Director of Volunteering Development at the
Alzheimer’s Society; and Head of Volunteering at Samaritans with 18,000 volunteers and 202 branches each led by
volunteers – a highly successful model of volunteers managing volunteers. Rachael is also a Trustee of Barnardo's, a
Director at the Association of Volunteer Managers and is training to be a qualified Pilates tutor.

6. Heather Baumohl is the Director of Member Involvement and Volunteering at Crohn’s and Colitis UK. She is a
member of the British Society of Psychology with over 30 years experience of working with volunteers. Heather has
worked with Crohn’s and Colitis UK for 12 years and has made a major contribution to the development of the
Association’s activities and services. Heather is an experienced executive with a substantial track record in delivering
results in the not-for-profit sector, particularly where it involves finding strategies to engage and retain volunteers.
Driven by a desire to help people develop Heather volunteered in a cross cultural adult education project which
culminated in a Train the Trainer programme being launched across Europe. This project was supported by the
European Socrates Fund.
Helen Timbrell started her career as a volunteer manager at the age of nine as Seconder of the Gnomes in the 121st
Bristol Brownie pack. Thirty two years later she is now Volunteering and Community Involvement Director at the
National Trust. Helen has worked in volunteer management with Citizens Advice, RSPCA and the University of
Warwick. Before joining the Trust she took three years out of paid work to complete a PhD on the geographical
variations in the nature, meaning and impact of volunteering in Scotland, partly funded by Volunteer Development
Scotland. Helen has volunteered as a Trustee in a number of organisations including Student Development Scotland
and Platform 51. She was Chair of the Volunteer Centre for Bath and North East Somerset for a number of years and
is currently on the Board of the Association of Volunteer Managers.
Sue Jones is a leader in developing training for managers of volunteers. She is excited by the emergence of informal
learning networks and the role that technology can play in supporting people to connect and develop both personally
and professionally.
Chris Huffee is a web site designer and IT specialist. He is passionate about demystifying the way that technology
works in order to support people to access on-line tools to help them connect, learn and work more effectively.
They are both part of VMmovement - championing the work of volunteer managers and encouraging them to connect,
learn and share ideas and resources. Find out more via www.vmmovement.org.uk and join us http://ivo.org/vmm
Rob Jackson is Director of Rob Jackson Consulting Ltd, a consultancy and training company that helps engage
and inspire people to bring about change. Rob has nearly 20 years experience working in the voluntary and community
sector, holding a variety of strategic development and senior management roles that have focused on leading and
engaging volunteers. Rob is also an active volunteer, including serving as chair of governors for a large Lincolnshire
primary school.

7. Ruth Bravery is Director of Volunteering and Community Involvement at Marie Curie Cancer Care. Ruth is
responsible for delivery of Marie Curie’s Volunteering Strategy where the charity plans to grow its regular volunteer
base to 10,000 volunteers by 2014. She is also responsible for the charity’s work around Patient, Family and Carer
engagement and for ensuring the voice of people using Marie Curie’s services is heard and responded to. Ruth was
previously an Assistant Director in H.M Revenue & Customs and has held a number of volunteers positions throughout
her life ranging from being a Scout Leader to Trustee roles in both a national and local charity. Ruth was born and
brought up in Newham and still lives and enjoys life in the East End.
A serial volunteer Tiger de Souza got his first taste of volunteer management as Sports President sabbatical at
Southampton University. After completing his studies Tiger became the first National Volunteer Manager for England
Netball before eventually joining v, The National Young Volunteers’ Service shortly after its launch in May 2006. Over
the next five years Tiger was involved in a broad portfolio of work including programme evaluation, quality assurance,
volunteer programme design and grant management. During this time Tiger also served as a trustee of Volunteering
England (2005-2008), where he took a keen interest in the work on Investors in Volunteers and Employee
Volunteering. He left v in 2011 to become Head of Volunteering at NSPCC where he is seeking to reimagine how
volunteers are engaged by the charity. Despite over a decade of experience, Tiger feels he is still learning about how
best to strategically develop volunteering, taking inspiration from the worlds of marketing, fundraising and human
resource management.
Steven Howlett is Senior Lecturer in the Roehampton University Business School. He previously worked for the
Institute for Volunteering Research and is the author, along with Colin Rochester and Angela Ellis Paine of
Volunteering and Society in the 21st Century.

8. Nikki Squelch is the Head of Volunteering Development for the Alzheimer’s Society. She has a long history in
community development and volunteer management. She has lead the volunteering agenda’s for two large and
complex charities. Committed to good practice in the engagement of volunteers, Nikki helped develop Investing in
Volunteers. She has been invited to contribute to national volunteering strategic groups, the Department of Health’s
national volunteering vision and strategy, the England Volunteering Development Council’s scrutiny committee. As a
founding member of AVM, she is a committed member helping to arrange learning events such as this conference.
Roger Parry is the Director of Agenda Consulting. He has worked since 1985 in the public and not-for-profit sectors
as a management consultant - 8 years with PricewaterhouseCoopers and a similar period with Compass Partnership.
He has worked with Boards, Chief Executives and senior managers in the following sectors: social care, housing,
international development, associations and unions, central Government and Non-Departmental Public Bodies. His
work focuses on human resource management, organisational change, benchmarking and board development. He
publishes several innovative benchmarking studies which that compare and contrast performance in human resources
and finance of around 120 medium and large Third Sector organisations annually. Internationally Roger has worked in
Kenya, South Africa and in Tanzania where he started and led a new consultancy practice for
PricewaterhouseCoopers for 2 years. Roger has an MBA from London Business School and a BA in Mathematics from
Oxford.
Debbie Usikin is one of the founding Directors of AVM and current Vice Chair. Volunteering since the age of 14
as a swimming assistant with PHAB, Debbie is still volunteering, swimming and actively engaged in inclusivity. Whilst
working as an operational manager of volunteers Debbie took an MA in Organisational Development, researching the
impact of business management models on volunteer involving organisations. Having gained some senior strategic
experience, Debbie now freelances with a focus on stakeholder engagement and building capacity. .Always interested
in how others do this thing we call volunteer management, will do almost anything for a decent cup of coffee and
always happy to meet and exchange thoughts.