Exposing wrongs in volunteering (From York Press)

Exposing wrongs in volunteering

10:16am Monday 8th February 2010 in

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I challenge Kate Taylor (Good to volunteer, Letters, January 27) to indicate a single sentence of my letter (January 20) in any way denigrating volunteers or the work they do. My letter contained nothing but appreciation and praise.

In contrast, Kate prefers to extol the benefits of volunteering to prospective volunteers. Yet, do volunteers really volunteer “because they get something back in return”? Volunteering has its costs. It would be quite improper to expect reimbursement from a charity, and there is the irredeemable sacrifice of what I prize most highly: my time.

I volunteer in order to employ my experience and expertise for the benefit of others. What benefits I derive from volunteering are incidental. I do not suppose this attitude is rare among volunteers.

Kate quotes correctly my reference to a manual “advising organisations on how to avoid inadvertently bestowing legal rights on volunteers”.

I think it quite unkind to suggest I intended to mislead. I have sufficient reliance on my facts, and too much respect for the good sense of Press readers to attempt such a thing. A moment’s reflection ought to have told her I must be referring to a legal publication and not to an unpublished information brochure.

I am pleased to know the the York Council for Voluntary Serrvice (YCVS) insists on good practice. I presume that good practice, as defined by the YCVS, includes a grievance procedure, though this thought puzzles me.

I have before me an email from a senior officer of City of York Council denying vehemently that the council has ever had a volunteer grievance procedure. Is not our council, which funds the brochure, registered with the YCVS?

All injustice is reprehensible whether it affects many or few. How can I be accused of undermining volunteering by simply drawing attention to malpractice?

William Dixon Smith, Welland Rise, Acomb, York.