Article Discussion: The volunteer crisis?

I found a very interesting article in one of the main Austrian newspapers (Die Presse – online), and I would like to share my thoughts about it with you. The article is called “Das Ehrenamt kommt in die Krise”, written by Georgia Meinhart (August 8, 2009), and it discusses the declining number of volunteers in Austria over the past years.

Emergency medical services, social clubs, fire brigades, choirs – everyone depends on the help of volunteers. As I mentioned in one of my previous blog entries, about three million Austrians are involved in volunteer work. However, according to Meinhart (2009) it is a fact that the number of volunteers is declining and less people are motivated to help others on an unpaid basis. In 2000, the number of volunteers was over 50% and in 2008 there were only about 44% of the Austrians over 15 participating in volunteer work.

The article also mentioned that individualism, changing behaviors and attitudes as well as the current unstable employment situation in Austria could be reasons for the decreasing amount of volunteers within the past years. Therefore, new projects are created to find new volunteers, especially older citizens and people who migrated to Austria. In my opinion, it is a good idea to search for new volunteers. As I mentioned two weeks ago, about 50% of all Austrian volunteers are high school and university students. However, if the number of volunteers is generally decreasing, it would be advisable to target new potential volunteer markets.

At my church, the number of young volunteers had its ups and downs due to the changing motivation. In general, the total amount of volunteers has not changed that much over the past years. It has to be taken into consideration, though, that very often entire families are involved in the community services at my church. Also, we have a large amount of older volunteers, but again, this can be related to the high family involvement.

Volunteers are incredibly important and without them many organizations or institutions would not be able to operate. Therefore, I absolutely support the idea of trying to reach new groups of volunteers.

If you would like to share your thoughts about the volunteer situation in your country, feel free to do so.

See you next week,

Bettina

References:

Meinhardt, G. (2009) Das Ehrenamt kommt in die Krise. Die Presse [online]. August 8, 2009. Accessed on December 5, 2009 under http://diepresse.com/home/panorama/oesterreich/501132/index.do?from=suche.intern.portal

My Volunteering: Jungschar Summer Camps

Every few weeks I will post an article in the category “My Volunteering”, which describes my main tasks as a volunteer in detail.

One of my most favorite tasks is the co-organization of the annual Jungschar summer camp. Our one-week camp always takes place in the beginning of the summer holidays at a house and camping group in Upper Austria or Styria. The group consists of about 30 to 40 children, accompanied by 10 to 15 group leaders.

Planning and organizing such a camp requires time, teamwork, patience and a large amount of creativity. The typical organizational process can be found below:

Planning the camp

The first meeting for the camp usually takes place in January. The general aim of this meeting is to find the theme for the camp, such as “Around the world in 8 days”, “Hollywood”, or “Heroes”. In groups of two or three the group leaders then create, invent and plan different games and activities according to the theme.

Every few weeks meetings are scheduled to create the daily schedules (which activity will take place when) and meal plans (who cooks which meal when) and to allocate the competencies, such as tent supervision, religious program or first aid, to the team members. The week before the camp is usually dedicated to packing, shopping (groceries and material) as well as final team-building sessions for the group leaders.

Organization at the camp

The main supervision at the camp is usually done by the camp leader. The past years my competencies were the religious program, the design of the posters and the cleaning of the bathrooms (what a joy!). Besides those tasks, I usually spend my time playing, singing and talking with the children as well as helping the camp leader with his organizational tasks.

During this week, children get the chance to enjoy outdoor games, sports activities such as soccer or Frisbee, team-building activities as well as discussion about their faith in and thoughts about God, Jesus and the Catholic Church. Camp fires, ping pong tournaments, strategy games, outdoor masses as well as water slides and hiking trips are only a few examples for the many activities taking place at our camp.

Feedback after the camp

Cleaning up, evaluation and feedback are the key elements of the post-camp stage. After the camp the team usually meets for a feedback session. Every year, the positive and negative aspects of the camps – things that went well / things that went wrong – are discussed and compared to the last year’s results.

This feedback meeting is very important as we can discuss elements which have to be improved, encourage each other for the next year and enjoy the memories of the successful, fun, stressful and awesome week.

If you have any questions to our camp, do not hesitate to contact me.

See you next week,

Bettina