Volume II, Issue 4, July 2002
'O Canada' - The Listening Behind the Canada Volunteerism Initiative
At the recent Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City many non-Canadians would have heard our national anthem, "O Canada," for the first time. Of course, it is a young anthem, adopted only 35 years ago. Canada is a young country but we have a long history of volunteerism. During 2001, the International... Read more
Time is Money: Time Dollars and the Money is Value Metaphor
"Time dollar" advocates claim that their currencies are not money, when in fact they are - special-purpose monies that function differently from the general-purpose monies we are accustomed to using. Does this mean that time dollars are a detriment to volunteerism? Not necessarily. Rather, time... Read more
Ivan's Musings
A Poetry of Volunteering?
I began work as a Coordinator of Volunteers in 1964. A year later I started writing poetry and haven't been able to stop since. I only hope this is not another occupational hazard in a profession already well supplied. Still, it's true that poetry can say some things hard to express in sober... Read more
Mandated Service - The Future of Volunteering?
During the period of 1975 to 1998, the defining change in volunteer involvement was the shift in styles of volunteering from the Long Term Volunteers, who had dominated volunteering in the 20th century, to the Short Term Volunteers, who struggled to balance the demands of work and competing
Each of... Read more
Mandated Volunteering: Oxymoron or Opportunity?
Susan and Steve explore the question:
Are people who are required to do unpaid service really "volunteers"? Read more
Good Sports
Volunteers have always been the backbone of sports, leisure and recreation programs, so we decided to do a quick round-up of Web resources in this area. What follows is a mix of things:
research studies and articles
forms and policies
workbooks and manuals
And just for fun we threw in a bunch of... Read more
101 Tips for Trainers or How To Survive Life "At the Front of the Room"
Rather than offering a training design, I'd like instead to share a lot of quick ideas with you that I have learned and found invaluable in almost 30 years as a trainer. Instead of adding more words than you would ever want to read about each idea, let me just offer them in "kernel" fashion, in... Read more
Mary Wiser Remembered
Mary Wiser, innovative director of volunteer services at the Courage Center in Minnesota, lost her fight with cancer but remains in the memory of the many volunteer program managers who saw her as a mentor. Unfortunately, Mary was not a writer, but her friends have culled her files and share some... Read more
Special Challenges in International vs. Domestic Volunteering
The Australian Journal of Volunteering published a speech by Stephen Parsons of Australian Volunteers International entitled "International Volunteering: Challenges in the 21st Century." With Parsons' permission, e-Volunteerism has used our Keyboard Roundtable format to give practitioners from... Read more
Exploring Hispanic American Involvement in Community Leadership through Volunteerism
R. Dale Safrit and Josue Lopez
One of the least-researched areas of volunteer involvement in the United States is that of ethnic volunteering. Hispanic volunteering, in particular, has received much less attention than it deserves considering the vast increase in size and importance of the Hispanic population of the United... Read more
Unseen but Heard: Ham Radio Volunteers Help via the Airwaves
Imagine that some catastrophic event hits your community, and residents are unable to use telephones, the Internet, or other communication tools we take for granted. Did you know that there is a vast global network of volunteers ready to get help to you quickly and efficiently? While many think of... Read more