Connecting Communities: Redesigning Recruitment

Redesigning Recruitment Tuesday 8 June // 10:00 – 11:30 // Zoom Webinar

Our panel of speakers will talk through how their organisation has adapted their volunteer recruitment processes.

Chris Reed, Director of Volunteer Mobilisation at The British Red Cross, will talk about how the Red Cross reviewed their roles before COVID, the process they went through then and how they are reflecting on these changes now.

Hannah Touhey, Volunteer Manager at Arthur Rank Hospice Charity, will be discussing how they reviewed their volunteer recruitment process and the impact that has had on the organisation.

Finally, we have Vic Hopkins, Project Leader from FoodCycle Cambridge, who will be discussing how they have revised their volunteering to address new challenges

The event will end with a question-and-answer session with the panel.

Please note that this event will be recorded.

Biographies

Chris Reed, Director of Volunteer Mobilisation at The British Red Cross

Chris has spent his career working across the public, voluntary and community sectors. He has been Director of Volunteer Mobilisation at the British Red Cross since 2017. He's an active member of the International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC) European Network for the Development of Volunteering (ENDOV) and the IFRCs Global Volunteer Alliance.

His career has included frontline volunteer management in the health and social care sector, heading the national volunteering functions at Barnardo's and St John Ambulance and Chief Executive of Volunteer Centre Westminster.

Despite having a young family, Chris continues to be an extremely active volunteer. He has been a Director of the Association of Volunteer Managers and a Community First Responder for the South East Coast Ambulance Service. He is a member of the Award Committee for the Queen's Award for Voluntary Service, Trustee and Secretary of his local Social Club.

Chris has also been a Trustee of Volunteering England, prior to its merger with NCVO, and a Director of Greater London Volunteering. Chris regularly speaks about the topics of volunteering and volunteer management. He is passionate about the use of digital and social media as a means of increasing and improving volunteering.

Hannah Touhey, Volunteer Manager at Arthur Rank Hospice Charity

Hannah is the Voluntary Services Manager for the Arthur Rank Hospice Charity and supports over 600 volunteers across Cambridgeshire. Hannah herself used volunteering as a way of regaining confidence after a period of mental ill health and is now passionate about the mutually beneficial relationship of volunteering. She has a background in mental health and is a Service User Governor at Cambridge and Peterborough Foundation Trust as well as a mental health blogger, writing for The Mighty and Bipolar UK.

As a result of her experiences, she is a keen advocate for reducing barriers to volunteering and ensuring it is accessible to all. Her focus is on providing a flexible and compassionate volunteering experience which meets the needs of its volunteers as much as those It serves

Vic Hopkins, Volunteer Project Leader, FoodCycle Cambridge

In her early career working at a local bakery, Vic became passionate about the issue of food waste. When looking for local voluntary opportunities, she struggled to find any that fit in around her full-time role, so when she found the flexible opportunities offered by FoodCycle Cambridge she knew she'd found her match. As a Project Leader, Vic has a broad range of responsibilities when it comes to volunteering, from working directly with volunteers in the kitchen to turn surplus food into community meals (currently offering a collection only service), to ensuring the rotas are filled and managing the volunteer's closed Facebook group