Continued from Weekend 1
at NUI Maynooth, the volunteer focus is on the prevention of a potential loss of social solidarity, by addressing youth and immigrant/refugee groups.
Like many in the sector, Larragy believes that the voluntary organisations who are having recruitment problems must review their approach in the light of social change. Their decline may be attributable to rather more than the old chestnuts of working wives, growing materialism, traffic congestion, less time and so on. "I do think that it's important that organisations look into themselves," says Helen Lahert of the NCV. Former members of certain traditional organisations talk about an attitude of "charity" as opposed to "self-help". "The one I was with just wasn't empowering, neither of themselves nor of their clients. It was very much the old model of 'them and us'", said one.
Endless committee meetings fuelled by procedural wrangles and pompous egos, hierarchical structures and patriarchal attitudes have no place in the newer organisations, which also tend to have a strong equal opportunities ethos, drawing people of every class, colour and ability into their volunteering corps.
Sometimes, it just comes down to being fast. "Young people who've grown up in a culture of MTV and fast food want information when they want it - fast", says Jackie O'Keeffe, the outreach officer for Volunteering Ireland.
"We feel once you target them, make it accessible to them, draw up structural and development policies to better involve them, the young do want to volunteer."
And it's by no means a one-way street. At one level, Eiblin Mahon talks about the value of listening to Inishowen's elderly people to help record a local history. But she also mentions that of the 60 volunteers trained by her organisation, about a third have got paid jobs as a result. Olive Skerritt was herself a volunteer at Our Lady's Hospice before taking on the job of volunteer co-ordinator.
Niall Bradley's uncle Gareth now works full-time with autistic children at Gheel, having got his taster at the GKI club. Angela Walsh notes that "many of the young would be motivated to work with children and see Barnardos as a career path, or as a taster." Stephanie O'Keeffe of Ruhama is working on a PhD which looks at how the police treat women who have reported sexual assault. She acknowledges that her volunteering was always going to be a two-way process: "I knew I would gain an awful lot from Ruhama - but I also knew that I had certain skills that would be useful to Ruhama."
Every category in the volunteering spectrum has thrown up people that have become reasonably-paid household names. Just think of environmental activism. Sometimes, it's serendipity; sometimes, it's hard-headed calculation. Sometimes it works the other way round. Management consultant Caroline Casey used her high-level business contacts to bring funding and awareness to the Aisling project. But either way, it hardly matters.
Everyone has a skill. And well over a third of voluntary organisations have fewer volunteers than they need.