Subsea & Pipelines Volunteer Week
The final task of my internship with Woodside Energy Ltd has been to organise a Community Initiative event for the Subsea & Pipelines Function, with the Safety, Health, Risk, Environment and Community Committee (yes that’s the SHREC Committee for short).
After several committee meetings, I came up with the idea to incorporate three separate volunteering opportunities within the last week of October, Woodside’s dedicated volunteer month.
The three events took place in the last week of October (26-30), and included options during the weekend (26/27), a full day option on Monday (28) and a half day option on Wednesday (30).
Below is a short description of the volunteer activities on offer to the Subsea & Pipelines Function:
1. Directions (26/27 October)
· ‘Directions’ is an organisation that supports those within the community living with disabilities. The ‘Directions weekend’ saw Woodside volunteers and their families spend one day with a person supported by Directions, either an adult or a child, and the staff member was responsible for planning activities and meals for the day using whatever resources they had available. A support person from Directions was also present on the day.
2. Vic Park Centre for the Arts (28 October)
· Woodside volunteers spent the day at the VPCA which is a community based Not-For-Profit organisation. The centre hosts a number of art classes and exhibitions, and is home to a small shop, beautiful garden and soon will also have a cafe. The centre, run almost entirely by volunteers, supports disability services organisations by providing art classes and an outlet for exhibitions and collaborations. Woodside employees were engaged to paint the main studio, oil the decking and ramp, trim the hedges blocking the ramp, and do a general tidy of the garden.
3. Homeless Connect (30 October)
· The Homeless Connect Preparation Day required volunteers from Woodside to sort, package and label goods in the Homeless Connect warehouse on Wellington Street. The day was in preparation for the Homeless Connect annual event (13 November 2013) which sees more than 700 homeless people in Perth gather in Northbridge to utilise a variety of goods and services provided to support people living on the streets.
With these three options chosen I got to work and with the help of one other dedicated committee member, we set up the briefing register for staff to register their interest in these events. We also brainstormed the possible marketing pathways for the activities to inspire members of the function to register. I was all the while liaising with my contact Katie at Volunteering WA, who was in contact with the Not-For-Profit Organisations we were planning to work with.
A few different ways to promote the volunteer week were recognised, including a power point presentation, that we would send out via group email and show at the regular morning tea meeting, posters in common areas, and simply by word of mouth.
The aim was to secure 15 people maximum for each activity planned. Staff at Woodside would need to apply for their volunteer leave (Woodside staff receive 12 hrs of paid volunteer leave a year), gain manager approval and register via the briefing register, providing their t-shirt size and any dietary requirements for the day.
The powerpoint (attached) was sent out to detail the volunteering activities on offer to employees, with email being the predominant form of communication used to promote Volunteer Week.
I was disappointed to see a lack of involvement from the other committee members as there was such a high workload and very little support from the other members, this unfortunately meant that the full extent of the marketing planned for the event was not realised.
As a result there were fairly low numbers around 7/8 registered for the second and third events, this dropped even lower as people began to pull out for various reasons. A little disheartened but determined to have a successful week, I signed up for the Vic Park Centre for the Arts activity day to make the numbers back up to 6 people.
Volunteering WA picked the group up from Woodside Plaza and supplied the group with all we needed including morning tea and lunch, as well as drinks throughout the day. I organised for Woodside to provide volunteer t-shirts and hats for the group.
We had a fantastic day despite having a work load meant for 15, it was quite hot and we were outside for most of the day, but we managed to get a surprising amount of work done, completing the 3 coats of paint in the studio, the two coats of oil for the deck and the ramp, trimming the hedges and also a good tidy of the front and side gardens.
Below are some photos of the day we spent at VPCA:
Directions was a great success according to activity leader Steve McGregor and The Homeless Connect Preparation activity, ended up with 11 participants who all enjoyed the day throroughly.
Reflections
Looking back on the process, I have positives and negatives to take away, the organising of the activities all in one week was certainly a challenge and meant long hours and prioritising over other workloads, as well as catching up after my full day of volunteering.
I also was forced to reflect on the committee’s effectiveness and also the negative associations with internal committees. I assumed those on committees were there because of a geuine interest in the subject at hand and a proactive nature to lead initiatives and dedicate time to a particular cause. However with comments such as ‘committees are just for making your PDP look good’ being thrown around, I realised the corporate structure I had entered may present opportunities for others to abuse these committees and in doing so, discredits them to some extent.
If there was more corporate control over internal committees at Woodside and a compulsory review session for committees to analyse the contribution of each individual, I believe this would cut down the number of people who do ‘sit on committees to better their PDPs’ and increase credibility of those doing incredible work on committees.
To end on a positive note, I believe the 12 hours of paid volunteer leave that Woodside allocates to each staff members is a true show of corporate social responsibility, and reinforces the monetary donations the company makes with an incredibly valuable resource to most NFPs...Time.
Regards,
Maddy
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