VIP Committee Meetings

Meeting minutes: 3rd November 2006

1. Membership

The membership comprised of Steve Topazio (ST), Asha Sharma (AS), Gemma Ayrea (GA), Kat Watkins (KW), Beth Shephard (BS), Eimear Blunnie (EB), James Bush (JB) and Diana Langford (DL).

2. Belinda Gatehouse was absent from the meeting

3. Minutes of previous meeting

Minuets from the previous meting were approved

4. Future Projects

JB was allocated the role of ‘social secretary’ which means he is responsible for the organisation of social kit, committee socials, and to help all other officers with their roles.

BS updated the group on progress within elderly projects. BS stated she had phoned around nursing homes and there was one called Alexander House that was really keen but they needed volunteers to be CRB checked.

JB and ST are already CRB checked and DL look into getting the rest of the committee CRB checked.

KW said she had phoned the CP Centre and they needed details of ‘Santa’s Little helpers’ including the dates. She has also spoken to ‘Headway’ who work with people with brain injuries and need volunteers for a buddying system. They will ring her back on Monday.

GA said she had been talking to students on her creative arts course and they are really interested in some kind of project to do with music and drama and she will look into this more.

EB stated that the Hampshire Wildlife Trust were very keen to build a long term partnership with the University. EB said she had spoken to the National Trust about possibilites of building conservation projects
but she needs to research this in more depth.
EB said there is a conservation officer in Portsdown Hill local Council -Richard Jones – who offers opportunites to volunteer every Wednesday afternoon and every 3rd Sunday. The main duties would be monitoring and surveying a diverse range of wildlife and if there was enough interest then we may be able to set up a student-led project.
DL explained she had received information from the British Trust of Conservation of Volunteers and passed this information to EB.
EB stated we should try and focus on local projects rather than looking to travel long distances.

AS said that not many people know about VIP and the awareness of the committee needs to be raised.
EB suggested email all the contacts we have regarding volunteering and letting them know what projects we are working on and so we keep their interest.
DL said to take the flyers to all lectures and university buildings and start promoting VIP.
KW said she will post the flyers around halls.
ST said he had spoken to Portsmouth Football Club and they are interested in getting involved in community projects they just need more information on dates and times and they may get
involved.

ST said similarly, BBC South and Radio Solent are interested too.
GA suggested using PURE radio station as much as possible to increase awareness.
DL said it wuld be good to contact all external relations through ST and AS so they do not get confused as to who to speak to.

5. Future Projects

EB stated she wants to try out any potential projects before we publicise them to students so we can talk from experience about what they are.
DL said the two projects that are looking promising are the nursing home project and the Portsdown Hill project and so these two can hopefully progress into something more regular.
The committee will hopefully try out the two projects before we link students up with them.

6. Santa’s Little Helpers

JB explained last years event to the committee.
KW expressed her interest in mixing able-bodied and disabled children at this event.
DL explained there may be a problem with CRB-checks and will look into this further.
ST said that the event is Saturday 9th December and asked if all the committee are available on this day.
All committee members said they were free.
It was suggested to get a list of volunteers that are interested in helping in this event at the next meeting and also put it on the website.Ideas included decorations to hang on Christmas trees and angels to go on top of the trees.
GA suggested inviting the volunteers to come to a meeting before the event to brief them on whats going to happen and also get them to help prepare for the event too.

7. VIP General Meeting

EB asked to have the committee details put on the website
JB said to keep the formal presentation short and then let the students speak individually to the committee.
JB will be the person that students can go to if they want a completely new project to happen that we don’t already cater for.

8. Social Kit

Officers agreed to have sky blue hoodies with VIP ‘Volunteering In Portsmouth’ on the back, and our names and VIP committee on the front.

9. Any other Business

EB suggested creating a mission statement containing our aims as a committee and a working document that we should work with throughout the year.
EB stated that we need o make sure all volunteers are covered by appropriate insurance before we send people into nursing homes.
EB suggested having a committee social to get to know eachother more and create a ‘community’ within the committee. Also to offer a social aspect of getting involved with VIP and have a social on the week after santa’s little helpers.

10. Time and Date of Next Meeting

Tuesday 7th November, 5pm
Tuesday 14th November, lunch in the Waterhole, 1pm

11. Action Points

All – think of ideas for santa’s little helpers and bring examples to the next meeting
All – progress with ideas already started
All – email DL with text for presentation by 12pm Monday 6th November
DL – Investigate the possibility of getting the committee CRB checked as soon as possible
DL – Put committee details on the website
DL – investigate insurance that our volunteers are covered by.
DL – send community centre contact details to whole committee
BS – To ring Nursing home and progress with the idea of taking volunteers to the home
KW – To speak to Headway
GA – Research ideas to do with music and drama opportunities
JB – liaise with DL and order social kit and organise a committee social
EB – To continue talks with conservation opportunites