Volunteers hit the Campaign Trail

Volunteers in Sheffield quizzed local Prospective Parliamentary Candidates (PPCs) yesterday in a debating session following the Question Time: Meet the Candidates event at Voluntary Action Sheffield.

Conservative candidate Nicola Bates (Sheffield Hallam), Labour candidate Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) and Liberal Democrat candidate Simon Clement-Jones (Sheffield Heeley) spent an hour discussing the crucial role volunteering plays in Sheffield with volunteers (and volunteer coordinators) from the Broomhall Centre, Catch 22, Embrace (The Children’s Society), Reading Matters, Sheffield City’s Council’s Community Justice Panels, SAFE@LAST, Sheffield Samaritans, and Sheffield Volunteer Centre.

The ‘Meet the Volunteers’ event was prompted by a batch of letters I sent out to local MPs and PPCs, requesting that they sign up to Volunteering England’s Volunteering Pledge (see previous post). That letter invited recipients to come to meet local volunteers to find out more about what they do, and yesterday’s resulting discussion was a really interesting session. Each candidate sat on a table with 5-6 volunteers and volunteer coordinators, then moved round the other tables to ensure they had a chance to speak to everyone. Whilst they already had knowledge of volunteering (Nicola has volunteered with Crisis Open Christmas and the Special Constables, whilst Paul Blomfield was involved in setting up Sheffield Volunteering at the University of Sheffield), they certainly learnt a lot more thanks to the well-informed and passionate volunteers they spoke to yesterday! Issues raised included concerns for future funding (with the need to understand that volunteering does not come for free and requires financial investment to ensure it is well managed) and a request for high level support for the development of more volunteering opportunities.

Paul Blomfield (who had already signed the Volunteering Pledge) said he had found the event very informative and had been very interested to hear about a range of issues from a variety of perspectives. I am very much hoping that Nicola Bates and Simon Clement-Jones will now sign up to the Pledge - watch this space!

Thank you very much to all the volunteers, PPCs, and volunteer coordinators who took part, for your valued time and input.