Kettering, OH, known as the “City of Volunteers,” launched its first-ever high-impact service plan last summer. The Kettering high-impact service plan will address two city priorities: community revitalization and sustainable home-improvements.  The plan is based on the Cities of Service Love Your Block and Sustainable Home Makeover Blueprints. The city’s initiative, Kettering Cares, was developed by a wide range of community stakeholders, including city agencies, local universities, and service and volunteerism clubs.
 
Read Kettering’s high-impact service plan, or the Cities of Service Playbook to help your city develop its own high-impact service plan.
 
 

Volunteer Gwinnett received an Achievement Award from NACO for its new website.  Volunteers have been an important part of several County departments and agencies for many years.  Now they have been centralized, expanded, and given a unified name, "Volunteer Gwinnett".  Their bold goal is to reach a million volunteer hours by 2015. They have already reached more than 991,000 hours. The new website makes it easy for potential volunteers to find opportunities, offer a few hours per day or week, participate in a one-time event, serve on a long-term basis, and easily track their hours. See their new site. 
 

The membership invoices are going out.  Please respond in a timely manner. We are stronger and better-informed as a group than we are individually.
 

Do you know an outstanding person or program that deserves to receive the Innovation Award, New Volunteer Administrator Award or the Outstanding Volunteer Administrator Award?  A fourth award is being added this year, the Award of Merit, which will be presented to a non-member of NAVPLG.  Visit the NAVPLG website and click on "Awards" for information and the nomination forms.  Nominations are due by May 1, 2014.

The awards will be presented during our annual meeting at the National Conference on Volunteering and Service.



 

Are you thinking about attending the conference?  It will be held in Atlanta, GA June 16-18.  Our annual meeting will be listed as (4841)Volunteer Managers in Local Government (NAVPLG)."  It is scheduled for Monday, June 16 at 10:00 a.m. in Room A351.  A complete list of sessions and events will be available on the Points of Light  website this spring.

If you plan to attend our meeting, please email Lee Ann Harvey with that information.

Thanks.

The New Year is a time to re-evaluate, refresh and renew. It is a time to look at new ways of doing things and what we can learn from others, so we don’t have to reinvent the wheel. We are in the process of doing this at NAVPLG. Board members are currently working on a website redesign that will move us into the 21^st century. We are also in the process of planning our session at the National Conference on Volunteering and Service (NCVS), which will be held June 16 - 18 in Atlanta, Georgia. My city of Decatur and President-elect Kay Sibetta’s county of Gwinnett are suburbs of Atlanta.  Please explore the area when you come to the conference. You will be hearing more about the NAVPLG conference plans as soon as they are finalized.

You will be receiving your membership renewals by email in the next couple of days. We appreciate your membership and look forward to you joining us for all of the exciting changes on the horizon for 2014. NAVPLG is a resource to members who are in the unique position of managing volunteers in a local government setting. NAVPLG board members  manage volunteers in counties, cities and towns. We invite you to contact us whenever you have questions. 
 

 Small Talk:  A Conversational English Program
 Start one in your library or through Parks and Recreation

Innovation
“Small Talk” is a conversational English program started to attract citizens to a new library in our community. The library manager felt there was a need for many non-proficient English speakers to practice their English.  Small Talk was not conceived as a class, but as a way for individuals from different cultures to improve their speaking skills and better understand the American idioms.  Over the ten years the program has existed, it has been exciting to see people gain self-confidence as they become fluent conversationalists. 

 

Please contribute a description of a lesson you have learned.  Write 250 words, or more, and send your article to the newsletter editor. The more information we share among ourselves, the smarter we will be.  Thanks for considering the possibility. 

Volunteers play a vital role in Riverside County's Regional Park and Open-Spaces District.  For that reason, a new position of Volunteer Services Program Manager was created in fiscal year 2012-2013.  The intention was to formalize and enhance current volunteer programming.  The position reports directly to the executive staff and is a member of District management, an ideal position with appropriate authority to truly operate a volunteer program and promote the field of volunteer administration.

Dedicated volunteers assist District employees across all program areas to enhance, maintain and restore our regional parks and recreational assets.  They help

• interpret our valuable natural, cultural and historic resources;
• keep facilities clean and trails in good repair; and
• offer a welcoming presence in our campgrounds and nature centers.

 

NAVPLG is proud to be an affiliate of the National Association of Counties (NACo). Check out the links below for some current NACo News and Resources that might be of interest:

• Plan For Disaster Volunteers Before They ‘Go Rogue'

• Get Plugged Into Volunteer Programs In Local Government

• Spotlight on a NACo Resource: County News MINI TOPICS Volunteers & Counties

NAVPLG’s affiliate representative to NACo is Greg Castano,  Volunteer Services Program Coordinator with Arlington County (VA). Learn more about NACo at www.naco.org.