My first thought, when I was informed of the existence of VSO local groups, was that they were perhaps some kind of support group. For the stable of mind, like me, this was soon filed in the back of my mind somewhere, then forgotten. I do have to make room for new stuff from time to time after all.
Anyway, last time at Harborne I was encouraged to make contact with them, as they are a resourceful bunch, not just by one of the VSO trainers, but by a nice lady I met in the canteen.
The upshot of all this is that two nights ago, I went to a quiz night hosted by my local VSO group with my mum. We came 4th surprisingly. I say surprisingly as we got two questions right between us. (my question was - ‘What is a Googol?’ and my mum knew who was the guy behind Basil Brush). Fortunately, we formed a team with 4 other people who knew the rest of the answers.
I was amazed at the amount of people there and realised where a lot of that £9 million that VSO raise comes from. Of all those ads you see for charity ‘Barn Dances’ and ‘Quiz Nights’, many are organised by VSO. Those same events pay for people like me to go on our placements. It was quite humbling.
We also got to meet the people who run the group and for my mum it was a chance for her to get involved in (or at least make contact with) the whole VSO thing. The truth is that VSO local groups are a very resourceful bunch of people and very worthwhile contacts to have before a Volunteer goes away.
I’m still in the process of organising stuff before I go, and if you are wondering why there is a picture of a cat in the photos on the right over there, it belongs to my parents and is called Sanchez.
I have tentatively put up a new page on the site showing the timeline of a Volunteer, from application to departure. I am not sure how useful this might be to potential nutters Volunteers as it varies massively and I can’t remember some of it but hey.
My next update will probably be during/after my next course, which is a big one, covering Disability, Health and Skills for Working in Development, towards the end of October.
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