Our Active Kindess project is now one year old and already making a big difference supporting Charitable Trusts.
Between December 2021 and December 2022 we worked with four pilot Trusts with the aim of building their capacity on volunteer management.
And from January 2023 we rolled out the programme to ten more of our members.
On this page you can find out about:
Active Kindness is funded by Sport England. It is a project designed to build the Leisure and Culture Trusts’ capacity for volunteer management and re-energise the volunteering experience in the Charitable Trust sector. Over the last 12 months Community Leisure UK, along with partners at the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, has been working with four pilot Trusts:
Active Kindness offers funding, training and support, including;
Managers agreed that participation in Active Kindness has increased the profile of volunteering within Trusts and helped to make the approach more structured and strategic. They talked about a “paradigm change” in their volunteer programmes and volunteer management.
There was also a better understanding of how valuable volunteers can be across the organisation. The pilot Trusts were all considering how to maximise what they had gained from the initial investment to take forward the volunteering agenda. Specific examples of embedding and developing volunteering at Trusts included:
Trusts also created an average of six new roles each through the programme. These included:
Our aim is to support the sector, through this programme, to bring long-lasting benefits to Charitable Trusts, individuals and communities.
Lisa Krockel, Original Progamme Manager, Active Kindness
This programme is fundamentally about re-energising the volunteering experience in our sector and creating a vision for volunteering in the 21st Century.
We have now recruited 10 new Trusts to continue this journey with us into 2023:
“You can never step into the same river twice. Things are constantly shifting, new water is suddenly swirling around your ankles and the change can almost be imperceptible. It feels a little like this when making changes to the culture of an organisation – there’s no big sign – just little signs.
Ian Hodgson, Community Activator at Hyndburn Leisure in Lancashire
“At Hyndburn Leisure Trust this is beginning to happen as we become more focussed on welcoming and valuing volunteers. No big numbers, no big shifts but definitely it ‘feels better’ and this is in no small part from the encouragement and expertise given to us by Active Kindness and the National Council for Voluntary Organisations. By the end of the programme we’ll have made enough little changes to count as a big one.”
“I love sport and working with young people, I wanted to try and use this to help me get qualifications, get to college and expand on my experience, in order to give me more choices in the future to work in the sports area that I love.”
AJ Smith, 16, volunteers at Your Trust, Rochdale.
“I like to keep active, going out and meeting people. It gives you a real buzz and keeps you healthy by being out in the fresh air. It gives you a lift when people are saying ‘you’re doing a great job’.”
Ben McElhinney, retired and volunteers at Active Luton on the golf course.
“I really enjoy working with people and youngsters, and building my confidence up to lead sessions and focusing on my specialist sport swimming. Thanks to volunteering I am now a qualified community sports coach and a trained lifeguard.”
Kyle Durand, 16, volunteers at Your Trust, Rochdale.
“It allows me to share my passion for the rich industrial heritage of Hyndburn with people.”
Gary Britland, 48, volunteers as a Walk Leader at Hyndburn Leisure, Lancashire.
