Date: 2nd December 2005
Released by: ANDREW TURNER

How many volunteers are needed to make a genuine ‘voluntary organization’?

That’s the question the Island’s MP, Andrew Turner, asked at a meeting of IW Older Voices at the Riverside Centre. He was congratulating the officers and members on being ‘genuine volunteers – people who give their time for nothing’, and asking why in some voluntary organizations the full-time staff have more influence than the volunteers – and in others there are hardly any volunteers.

Mr Turner, who is also Shadow Minister for Charities, added:

“Volunteers sometimes need to assert themselves in voluntary organizations to make sure that it is they, not their staff, who decide the strategy. After all it is they who bring the most valuable commodity, time, to the work that organizations need to do. I think it’s time that we valued the volunteer more than we do, stop tying them down with red tape and bureaucracy, and allow the organizations they belong to remain true to their objectives, not be diverted by Government or other influence to something tangential to the vision of their founders.

“I do not diminish the role of other third sector and community organizations and charities. But let’s not confuse what they do – which is laudable – with the selfless giving of time and expertise which characterizes the volunteer.”

END

Contact : Andrew Turner 01983 530808