Wednesday, November 28, 2018

New online facility for volunteers

Denbighshire Voluntary Services Council (DVSC) has been involved in a number of  digital platform developments.

As well as the relaunch of dvsc.co.uk , its new corporate interactive and informative website, in June it added an exciting enhancement to its #DenbighshireVolunteers digital platform, in partnership with the Wales Council for Voluntary Action, with a new digital volunteering platform to replace the current system on volunteering-wales.net.

The new platform enhances the #DenbighshireVolunteers.net service offer, and can be found direct from the site with a click of the Get Involved button.

It is free for volunteers and for organisations looking to recruit. As before they can find opportunities by searching for keywords or according to distance from your location.

However, volunteers can now also log the hours and skills they gain through volunteering and will receive digital badges for volunteering 50, 100, 200 hours or more.

The system will help volunteer involving organisations in Denbighshire to recruit and manage volunteers, log volunteer hours, plan rotas and events, record training and experience and produce reports.

In August the information sharing agreement with DEWIS Cymru and InfoEngine went live.

InfoEngine is an online directory of third sector services in Wales provided and supported by Third Sector Support Wales, a partnership of County Voluntary Councils and the Wales Council for Voluntary Action.

There are nearly 40,000 voluntary organisations and community groups across Wales whose services support individuals in many ways. 

Infoengine is the online directory of voluntary sector services for Wales that helps citizens, groups and professionals to find out what services are available to support people in your area.

DVSC's link with Dewis Cymru means that people don't need to visit more than one place for information.

Voluntary sector service information is registered on Infoengine and also displayed in Dewis.

The shortlist facility enables users to create specific shortlists that are automatically updated and can be printed to produce hard copy directories. The Infoengine widget also enables people to embed the Infoengine search engine in their own website.

Infoengine grows daily and is proving an essential tool in providing information, advice and assistance to the people of Wales.

Helen Wilkinson, Chief Executive Officer of DVSC, said:Like all great digital tools and platforms, Infoengine is only as good as we make it. So I want to urge all voluntary and community groups, third sector organisations and social enterprises in Denbighshire to register and list the full range of services on offer and to ask our public service partners in the county to promote it so that the public have the widest possible information and choice as possible.  

"The more we engage, and work together in partnership, the more we raise the profile and awareness of third sector services among the public, professionals and public service partners and the more we can help promote and support wellbeing for all.”

To support you in getting your information and opportunities online DVSC is inviting members to drop in to its offices any time between 9 and 12 on Friday December 7 and a member of its team will help you upload your service information on InfoEngine and your volunteering opportunities on http://denbighshirevolunteers.net/get-involved/. 

You will need to allow up to an hour to get information onto both sites and you must ensure you bring all information required with you – organisation information, project/service information and all information about your volunteering opportunities.

Whilst it is not mandatory organisations are encouraged to complete this bilingually but they must bring any translations with them.

* DVSC says there is no need to book for this event but if you have any questions, email volunteer@dvsc.co.uk or call us on 01824 702441.

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