Keeping adults with care and support needs protected from harm is a priority for us. So it’s critical for the safe running of our groups that volunteers understand safeguarding and how to report any concerns.
We’ll soon be making our new ‘Health and Safety for group volunteers’ training available on our eLearning platform.
We’ve designed this short, interactive course to help raise awareness of the forms needed for events and activities, how to use the Portal for recording them and where to get support if you need it. It will only take 15-20 minutes to complete the course.
At the beginning of 2022 we were delighted to launch our new Volunteer Recognition Scheme — including Length of Service recognition and our new Impact Awards (to replace Shining Stars).
Length of Service recognition
We’ve been saying thank you to our volunteers on the key anniversaries of their involvement with the MS Society. We send these messages to your email inbox, based on the information we have on our database about your volunteering record with us.
There are just two months to go until Volunteers’ Week 2023, which runs from 1-7 June. This annual event (now in its 39th year) is a time for charities, voluntary groups, social organisations, and volunteers themselves to come together. And to recognise the incredible impact that volunteering has on communities around the UK.
The TCS London Marathon 2023 is just around the corner and we have a team of over 300 runners taking on 26.2 miles for the MS Society. Together they’re hoping to raise an incredible £700,000. So we really want to ensure that they have a great experience and feel supported along the whole route.
How can I help?
Volunteers are a vital part of all our cheer points along the route. We need as many people as possible to join us in making lots of noise and cheering on our fantastic team.
Our Stop MS Annual Lecture for 2023 will be given by Professor Helen Ford on Thursday 25 May. Helen is Consultant Neurologist and Clinical Lead of the West Yorkshire MS Treatment Programme at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, and Honorary Clinical Professor of Neurology at the University of Leeds.
On Monday 8 May, thousands of organisations – big and small – are getting together to mark The King’s Coronation by giving everybody the chance to try volunteering for themselves and make a difference in their community. This initiative is called The Big Help Out.
As MS Society volunteers are continually impacting the MS community, we'd love to highlight your volunteering and all you do on that day too.
After the closure of the Web to Print platform, MS Society Designs is our interim solution which supports groups and individuals to design and produce high quality newsletters, stationery, social media graphics and other promotional items.
You can find all you need to know about the service, new process and how to make orders on the volunteer website here. On this page, you can also find all of the templates that are available and our new, handy design guide to support you in choosing what you need.
At the end of last year, we shared information about our free will writing service in our newsletter. You can find a copy of the article here.
We want all our supporters and people within our community to have access to this service, so their values are honoured and their final wishes are clear, and the people and causes they care about get the financial support they want to give them.
