Volunteering Aust Gears Up for 2006 Conference
16 January 2006 at 12:01 pm
Volunteering Australia is gearing up for the 11th National Conference being held in the lead-up to the largest volunteer event in Victoria, the XVIII Commonwealth Games.
The conference will focus specifically on the themes and issues relevant to volunteer involvement in major events in Australian communities.
The peak body says whether it is international sporting events, cultural festivals or natural disasters and emergencies; volunteers involved in sport and recreation, culture and tourism and emergency management connect Australians to one another and to the rest of the world.
One of the Australian keynote speakers will be David Brettell the manager of the Sydney Olympic Games Volunteer Program.
The conference will also have regard to the three core values espoused by the Commonwealth Games Federation- Humanity, Equality and Destiny – and celebrate the unique contribution that volunteers make to international exchange and understanding.
As part of the 11th National Conference on Volunteering, Volunteering Australia will also host the inaugural Researchers’ Symposium – a unique forum for researchers in the field of volunteering to come together to share research ideas, practices and strategies for fostering increased research in this area.
Bringing together practitioners, academics and researchers, government policy-makers, business and volunteers the conference aims to provide a national opportunity for information exchange, discussion and debate on volunteering and the chance to engage in informal networking opportunities during the build up to the Commonwealth Games.
The international key note speakers include: Justin Davis Smith, the Deputy Chief Executive of Volunteering England and Director of the Institute for Volunteering Research; Liz Burnes, and the President of the International Association for Volunteer Effort (IAVE) in 2001 and past CEO of Volunteer Development Scotland; and Sarah Hayes, a specialist in building successful business-community relationships.
To find out more about the Conference program and online registration go to:
www.volunteering2006.com.
