The Power of Volunteering: Una’s Approach to Making a Difference

“She’s fab! Una is understanding, [wild] about her volunteers (and all involved) and always available.”

Una Mulgrew is a Community Connection Co-ordinator and Volunteer Manager at RNIB, based in Northern Ireland. When one of her volunteers sent us such a positive quote about Una, we knew we wanted to talk to her about her experience as a Volunteer Manager.

“I’m a Community Connection Coordinator. I've been with RNIB nearly eight years. I absolutely love my job. I love people, and I'm at the fun stage for customers, who have reached acceptance and are reasonably independent.

"Part of my role is to create social opportunities for people to make friends. Sometimes people just meet two or three times, and they connect and they're off having cups of coffee and doing walks by themselves.

"I also support volunteers to deliver Understanding Sight Loss sessions such as delivering to partner staff such as National Trust NI, Arts organisations and Regional college staff and students; my work also involves connecting people to their peers, and to other opportunities in their local community. It's a really, really great job.”

Una told us about some of the volunteer roles in her team and the impact that the team are making in their area.

“In our team, there are blind and partially sighted volunteers who travel their local area to talk about what it's like to live as a blind person and about the services that RNIB offer. The objective of the project is to break down barriers within local communities so sighted folk aren’t afraid of or try to avoid blind or partially sighted people; this project is going to be good for recruiting volunteers who could become tandem pilots, sighted guides etc. and people and groups appreciate the talks and donate to RNIB. It’s brilliant for the volunteer who is presenting, they're doing a valuable role, going out there and educating wider society on what it is like to live with sight loss on a daily basis

"Some volunteers deliver a more in-depth educational session called ‘Understanding Sight Loss’ which targets organisations and individuals who work with blind or partially sighted people, and this session is also offered to the community to share with friends and family so they get a more involved understanding of what their loved ones experience every day. A popular part of the session is sighted guiding training. This course can be delivered online or face-to-face and was designed by and delivered by blind and partially sighted people. There are 2 volunteers who deliver to every student who comes through the doors of one of our local colleges in Derry City - and it's fantastic.

"The variety of volunteers we have is tremendous. There is one who works tirelessly on social media, he posts every event and our team have lots of events! Other volunteers organise monthly brunches and daytrips to the beach, while others support on the bus for a local group. Another volunteer does a lot of educational Facebook interviews to go live: during the Paralympics she hosted weekly interviews which included: a tennis player, a runner, a swimmer and she has now got a series on mental health support – interviewing people who share meditation tools, mindfulness etc. Our volunteers are great with coming up with their ideas based on the needs of the community they are emersed in. So, the roles have such a huge variety.”

We discussed with Una why she thinks it’s important to thank her volunteers.

“There are volunteers who really, really do go beyond the pale and there would be very little community uptake without them. I want to say well done, I know they do it for their people, and I know they enjoy it too, but it’s great to let folk know they are appreciated, not just by RNIB but when I’m out and about their peers let us know how good our volunteers are – I’m always sure to remember to tell them!! Truthfully, you know, if you really add the volunteers’ times up, there's a lot of time put in for RNIB and for the community. I say well done to people all the time, I love people to tell me ‘well done’, if I do things well.”

Finally, Una was asked what skills help with the volunteer management side of her role and what tips she would share about how to be a good volunteer manager.

“I'm a people person and I think it makes a difference if you are quite good at asking people how they're getting on or what are they are up to. I try to keep stuff as informal as possible including the training, keeping it informal and conversational.

"Just be yourself and let people be themselves, you can talk to people and see if they're going to fit into it or not, you can’t force people into something that they don't want to do. Working with so many volunteers, I’m not always available over phone and it’s about managing this by saying ‘I'm in a meeting at the minute, but I will phone you back’ and I give a start and an end time to help manage our time.

"I have a nice rapport with people and the important thing is that they have a nice rapport with me as well. I'm just very, very lucky with the volunteers that I have.”