Notice Board - News

We've bean counting! Fieldays Visitors are valuable volunteers

Volunteering Waikato, Hamilton

A poll of visitors to the Volunteering Waikato stand at Fieldays revealed that Fieldays visitors had undertaken 2,616 volunteer jobs in communities all over New Zealand.

Volunteering Waikato hosted a Fieldays stand where they represented the nine volunteer centres in New Zealand. The aim of the stand was to promote the concept of volunteering and to get people thinking about what they might do in their communities.

Manager of Volunteering Waikato Carol Anderson said "As a fun way of getting our message across we asked visitors to our stand to take part in our very unscientific survey 'A bean for a been'. We had five empty jars representing five categories of volunteer work — Arts, Conservation, Heritage & Culture, Social Care and Sports & Leisure. We then asked people to place a bean in the jar that represented the type of volunteer work they been doing in their community. Those who took part were then rewarded for their voluntary work with a Jelly Bean!"

Carol says "At first a lot of people did not see themselves as volunteers but when we got talking to them we discovered that many people were active volunteers in their communities without realising it! This included helping out at schools, with local sports teams, and at church. We were also delighted to meet a number of people who worked for some wonderful voluntary organisations who we typically associate with volunteering including the fire service, St John's and the Lion's Club."

The breakdown of the poll showed that Fieldays visitors had volunteered 201 times in the Arts, 468 in Conservation, 171 in Heritage & Culture, 736 in Sport & Leisure and 1040 Social Care.