Vienna Meeting 18 – 21 May by Mana Hazlett from University of Strathclyde, Scotland

Notes from Volunteering Conference in Vienna 18 – 21 May 2011

Wednesday evening – “Getting to know you” supper.

Delegates brought food from their respective countries. We had a good tuck in to some of the dishes as we were pretty peckish by the time we got there!

It was a lovely informal evening and a good way to begin the conference. The first evening, Monika, Magdalena and Albert were particularly helpful and welcoming. We were given badges to wear and one lady from the catering folk made her own badge with a post it. Her name was Lisl. That was such a nice gesture I felt. Lynda’s mum’s dumpling and Jennifer’s mother-in-law’s shortbread were a great success.

Thursday morning – “Tell me” session.

Before we started the first session delegates from the Italian and Polish groups gave us gifts. We got felt badges to wear. They use the money made at present to support relief efforts in Japan after the tsunami disaster.

There were four sessions to choose from and I went to the one in the main hall. The delegate from Poland gave a presentation about the third age university in Slupsk near Gdnask. We had a power point talk with photos of the University and encouraged to visit. They are delighted to be hosting the next Volunteering Conference in October 2012. The University is similar to the Adult Learners courses at Strathclyde. But they also have work with Daily Care Centres and Community help cafes. It was also interesting to hear about the Story-telling groups as this is valuable for people who want to set down their memories after having been through different regimes.

One of their volunteers then gave a presentation about some research she had done. This looked very interesting but it was difficult to take notes of as it was very scientific. But am sure the findings will help as they create programmes of education for older people.

After the coffee break, Ena got a chance to give her talk about the Community Cafe in East Kilbride and two groups merged for this as so many were interested in community cafes and how to set them up. She did very well and her visual aid of the colourful emblem that they have at the entrance brought a little bit of Scottish sunshine to the mornings talk. (At this point we didn’t know about the pouring rain back home!)

Then we had lunch. Well, what can I say? How long do I have? I don’t normally eat much at lunch, the odd piece of fruit and a kit-kat do me fine but oh my, the food was delicious. I had a plateful and would have loved to have gone back for seconds but didn’t have room! It was great. I am smiling as I remember!

Mealtime over and we had to choose for our afternoon craft work. It was good having time to talk to other delegates as I got to know Angelica from the German group. She persuaded me that it would be ok to go to the “Creative Writing” group although it was to be in German as she assured me that she would translate. The other groups were Felt work, collage in a suitcase and interview techniques. The writing group was taken by the Professor from a German University. The gist of what she said was that a lot of people feel it is good to learn to use your imagination and learn how to write “interesting” writing rather than functional writing. Once the creative juices are released people can extend themselves and develop. So they become not only more ready for being educated they become more creative in other ways as well. Some of what she said was lost in translation but because I am in a Writers’ Group and love writing as a hobby I felt I agreed with what she was meaning.

When she gave us our first writing strategy she wanted to establish that when people tell a story, they have a unique way to say things and in order to encourage people to set their own story History will be able to be set down more accurately. There were seven of us in the group; we had to write down as many words we could think of when we thought of Vienna and Waltz. We then read out our word lists and most of us had different words.  Then we had to write a story using as many of the words as we could but also tell a story about ourselves at the same time.

My story was chosen to be read out at the plenary session and everyone enjoyed it. I was humbled by the way people who couldn’t even really understand what I was saying could relate to the story, it made me realise how powerful story-telling was.

Friday morning session – we met in different groups and went over points to establish what we got from each session. I found this bit too confusing to be able to take notes but I got the impression that volunteering was in fact quite different in other countries represented and that it was definitely worth while meeting together to get some  structure for people who perhaps didn’t have good terms or conditions for volunteering. Some people rely on volunteers for care in the community and in education. Through our meeting together we hope to be able to improve on legal requirements for volunteers so they can be protected.

I had been hoping to give a presentation myself but there never seemed to be time so I was very grateful to Monika for getting me to have some time at the morning session to give out leaflets and let them know about The Miscarriage Association, and I am very grateful to Hilde for translating for me with very little notice.

Thanks also to Lynda, Clare and Melanie for keeping us all on the right path through the subway system and on and off buses, not an easy task! What a lively and diverse group we were and the great thing was we all got on so well!