Older volunteers: Opportunity of a lifetime
Westminster Hall, Tuesday 6 June 2006

WRVS chief executive, Mark Lever, chaired the joint VITA and Help the Aged conference 'Older volunteers: Opportunity of a lifetime'. Over a hundred delegates from volunteering and community organisations across the UK attended to discuss good practice in recruiting and making volunteering a better experience for older volunteers.

Sally Price of VITA announced the re-launch of Volunteering England’s campaign against age discrimination and urged delegates to sign up to the campaign’s three-point plan:

• no arbitrary age limits for volunteers
• volunteer opportunities not decided on age, with roles
• matched to people’s motivations and abilities
• organisations to actively seek insurers who do not
• charge unreasonable premiums for older volunteers.

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Volunteers Week 2006

TV and pop legend Cilla Black fronted a campaign to recruit older volunteers in Birmingham, Bristol, Liverpool, Norwich and Manchester. The campaign was a joint venture between VITA and WRVS.

“All too often people over-65 think they are too old to take part in community projects their area – nothing can be further from the truth. 

Our aim is to find out what are the best ways of getting older people interested in volunteering in their area. We want to know if word-of-mouth is more effective than advertising, and what are the most important factors that persuade people over-65 to take the plunge.”, said VITA programme director, Sally Price.

See the campaign microsite