An Interview with the Best Practice Award Winner 2025, Reconnect CIC
We were delighted to get the chance to meet with Paula, Volunteer Manager at Reconnect CIC to hear about some of the inspirational work she does with their volunteers.
It was a wonderful to have you at this year’s Gloucestershire Volunteer Awards, what does it mean to you to win this award?
ReConnect is extremely honoured to have won the Best Practice Award and it really has made our year. We always try to do our best for both volunteers and the recipients of our service and having this recognised, certainly helps us know we are not only on the right lines but also leading the way.
What impact do volunteers have in your organisation?
Put simply, immeasurable impact. The whole remit of our work is to use people with lived experience of either a stroke or other long-term condition, to help others struggling to adjust. This authentic support is highly valued and turn something that some see as a burden into a positive outcome.
From your nomination, we can see you are creatively managing volunteers, we would love to know more about how you do this.
The fundamental emphasis of our support is to make everything achievable no matter what level of disability or condition someone has. This means every volunteer has personal, support and guidance to ensure they can volunteer successfully and all barriers are removed or managed effectively. This can be as simple as weekly contact to encourage, reminders before a session is due to start and a wide range of volunteering opportunities to try. We truly listen to our volunteers and view each one as a separate entity.
We always start off small – where the person is at that point in time – and then offer roles that go that bit further as confidence grows. We also listen to volunteers when they need a temporary break due to fatigue or who need a change in role. This keeps the momentum of volunteering and avoids people leaving as they do not see progression in their role.
We also acknowledge the implication of that volunteers' condition and take care to make things achievable. This can involve ensuring volunteers do not have to travel too far and being aware of what ‘too far’ means for each person. Truly knowing each volunteer cannot be underestimated.
We get asked advice on how to best support volunteers – what tips or advice would you give to other volunteer managers?
The first one is to always remember to invest time in yourself. I read and research a lot about volunteering, looking for ideas and things to try. So as a Volunteer Manager, I invest time in my own role and always endeavour to remain relevant. I also challenge my own thinking and look for new ideas to deepen volunteering at ReConnect. I think this is why we get asked to be part of research projects as we are open to different ideas. These opportunities then offer something constantly new to our volunteers, and they can dip in or out as they wish.
The next one is to keep in regular contact with all your volunteers. For me that is either weekly or fortnightly and never longer than this. I try to get to know each volunteer and their motivations and make their volunteer journey a personally effective one. I always go out to see volunteers for a coffee or catch up and sometimes this requires persistence!
The final one is to search for potential volunteers rather than wait for them to find you. Finding volunteers is a shared focus by all the staff at ReConnect i.e. they look for people who may fit what we need and then I follow that up as well as do my own finding. This collective effort ensures that we don’t miss a chance to enlist a new volunteer.
How do you adapt roles to suit individual needs and how does this then support services being delivered?
85% of our volunteers have either had a stroke themselves or have a long term condition that means daily life is very challenging. This means our volunteers typically have issues with fatigue, with mobility, with timetabling and/or anxiety. Of course some do not.
We ensure anything we ask is achievable for that person at their stage of recovery journey or there is a new adaptation required. Typically, this will be considering how far a volunteer has to travel, nearby accessible parking, consideration of steps or uneven floors and the times of day. I will also remind volunteers of their commitments through my weekly messages to them ie they arranged to visit a person on a set day and how did that go? We also build in volunteering breaks and balance easy requests with ones that are more complex and therefore more demanding.
For example, if we get a request for a home befriender in central Cheltenham, we must work out the distance a volunteer would have to travel, where they can park, the time of travel to avoid commuting traffic and the sensory overload in navigating a busy city.
What do you enjoy most in your role?
I enjoy seeing anxious volunteers really blossom and start to push themselves. They typically have experienced lots of things they cannot do and turning that into ‘we can work with that’, builds their sense of self worth and value. When we lose volunteers its usually because they have returned to work or fulltime work, gone back to study further in a career that has new relevance or their timetable is now so busy with new friends and groups, they cannot fit us in!
How has Go Volunteer Glos supported your volunteer management?
Having a platform to find new volunteers and advertise our roles has been invaluable. It also enables us to get a feel for where we can evolve and offer new opportunities based on what people are seeking.
The Volunteer Awards also add status to Volunteering and give it a platform where collectively we celebrate this worthwhile life skill.
Finally, what are your three top tips for other volunteer managers?
1. Be organised and dedicate time to doing Volunteer Management well. Evolve your practice and remain relevant.
2. Ensure ALL volunteers are contacted regularly and keep a commitment to getting to know them.
3. Constantly keep opportunities fresh and inviting. Small tweaks can bring new volunteers onboard and keep existing volunteers motivated.