NSW Centre for Volunteering state conference

The NSW Centre for Volunteering State Conference was held in Sydney on Thursday, June 8, with regional hybrid events at Moree, Broken Hill, Orange, Griffith and Wagga Wagga.

Narrabri Shire had three representatives out of the 12 attendees at the Moree hybrid event.

Joan Griffiths and Debbie Ciesiolka from Narrabri Shared Table and Noreen Boehm from Boggabri John Prior Multi-Purpose Service.

The theme of the conference this year was ‘Volunteering in an age of Disruption’.

Inspirational keynote speaker Leigh Sales AM set the scene.

Ms Sales is a multi-award-winning author and journalist at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation for 25 years.

‘Empowering community through connection and culture’, was presented by passionate CEO Uncle Shane Phillips from Tribal Warrior.

His message was on engagement, community benefits and how forming partnerships and relationships can be mutually beneficial and can build strong, connected and resilient communities.

Daniel Murray from Empathic Consulting engaged everyone and left them invigorated to strive for understanding and performance of employees and volunteers, and the challenges and skills required to lead in disruption.

Attendees were brought up to date with the changes in Respect at Work Act 2022 and codes of practice for psycho-social hazards by Hall and Wilcox Lawyers.

Other sessions included, reconciliation, your role as a leader a local round table discussion.

The last session of the day was devoted to keynote speaker Christine Anu, an Australian recording artist and entertainer.

Christine’s 27-year career is filled with success but not without a few challenges along the way.

Christine spoke of her family and career and much to the delight of the conference attendees performed a couple of musical items with her 18-year-old daughter Zipporah, an entertainer in her own right.

Narrabri not-for-profit Shared Table provides free meals and hampers to vulnerable local people.

The bulk of the food coming from Food Bank for their shop and their shared table meal that they provide on Fridays for more than 40 people.

Generous local people also donate food to the organisation.

The group also provide more than 30 hampers made up from items from Second Bite, an initiative of Coles and Woolworths.

Dedicated volunteers pack hampers and cook the food each week.

Mrs Griffiths said: “we would welcome more volunteers, especially anyone who could help with the cooking on Fridays.”

Boggabri Multi-Purpose Service and their volunteers has been restricted and disrupted by COVID-19 as they care for the acute and the elderly residents in care.

Noreen Boehm supports the diversional therapist by providing one-on-one visits to those residents that chose not to attend the activity room events by providing a regular visitor, value add to their day by keeping them mentally stimulated and helps provide a sense of purpose and helps combat depression.

She also helps with the activities scheduled for the activity room, doing power point presentations and craft.

Volunteers form the basis of many rural and small towns essential and support services and their needs; the recruitment and retention is different to metropolitan but ultimately volunteers are the backbone of the community.

In 2020, nearly 4.9 million residents over 18 in NSW gave time as a volunteer.

Volunteers contributed 1.5 billion hours in 2020.

The volunteering sector is nearly four-times larger that the NSW government (public) sector.

The value of volunteering in NSW was approximately $127 billion.