PDF format. Editorial
This edition of Voluntary Action brings together a strong group of papers which are both thoughtful and practical. This edition of Voluntary Action starts with four papers addressing a theme of ethics and volunteering. These papers come as a result of conversations with Professor Robert A Stebbins, Director of World Leisure’s Volunteer Commission and colleagues at Glasgow Caledonian University who used their contacts and interest in the field to draw together authors; we are very grateful for them for their interest and work.
The journal starts with a paper by Margaret Graham whose idea it was for this first part of the journal. Margaret’s paper looks at tourism, her area of expertise, and discusses what is happening with volunteers. Margaret explores the concept of serious leisure, a term which explains the motivation to volunteer in terms of participants pursuing their interests with like-minded people. But, Graham argues that increasingly museums are being asked to be more like tourist attractions, and while this may be on the face of it helpful in broadening the reach of museums, it often requires museums to act differently. When this involves presenting history as a tourist pursuit volunteers can feel as though the values they hold dear are being challenged. How then should museums present themselves and manage volunteers to span this idea of serious leisure and of being part of the tourist landscape?
The second paper by Deborah Edwards builds on this and underlines a key theme. Edwards’s paper shows how volunteers make a commitment through their volunteering; they chose museums because it provides them with rewards such as the learning they acquire. But it is also an expression of the values they hold and Edwards shows that these are similar to those reported in the mission statements of the institutions in which they volunteer. The paper goes on to note that the way in which volunteers are viewed by volunteer managers, and by others in museums is a key element in volunteer satisfaction. Moreover how volunteers are involved and their values can be influenced by management styles. But, it is important and ethical that volunteers are aware of the values of the organisation and how these influence management. Putting this alongside the first paper, perhaps the reader can begin to speculate on what happens when those values change – maybe as museums move into a more tourist focus?
The third paper departs from a focus on leisure and looks at another key area for volunteer involvement, that of being a trustee or director. The paper by Thompson looks at a study of six boards of directors in Canada. In each case Thompson shows how trustees or directors as volunteers contravened by-laws. Thompson’s conclusion was that none of the instances she found were intentional. Rather they resulted from a misunderstanding of the trustee’s role and how to implement that within a voluntary organisation. Readers other than in Canada will no doubt recognise the issues – there is a poor understanding of the trustee as a volunteer and how the techniques of volunteer management can help overcome some of these. In the UK we may hope that the work of the governance hub which does recognise trustees as volunteers will help.
Lastly we have a paper by Kirsten Holmes which in a succinct article outlines the ethical issues in researching volunteer management. Holmes outlines guidelines to help researchers.
We also have in this issue three other papers. The first is by Pater Taylor of Sheffield Hallam University and his colleagues (One of whom is Kirsten Holmes – her second appearance in this issue!). The article looks at the way in which voluntary groups and volunteers are increasingly viewed by government as a means of addressing government policy. It is a key debate, and Taylor and his colleagues look at this issue in relation to sport. How can such a diverse sector be supported to develop capacity? Will the sector be in a better position to meet government objectives through sport? And, how will clubs respond if they see that help is there but primarily to enable them to do the bidding of government? The paper finds that the results, unsurprising given the heterogeneity of the sector, will be mixed. In particular the paper highlights the tension between harnessing the strengths of smaller informal clubs but in doing so requiring a level of formality that changes their nature.
The paper by Fortier and Auger with Froment-Prevosto looks at the involvement of young people. The research on which the paper is based took place within Quebec, and by lucky chance it took place within leisure organisations. We are therefore able to see that many of the issues raised reflect those that we have seen researched in other parts of the world. As such this paper helps to cement those findings by adding to the broader field of youth volunteering and extending it by adding empirical findings from French-peaking Canada. But we are also able to place this paper alongside others in this edition which adds n more to research on leisure and sport volunteering.
Finally we have a paper from Becky Warrior. This paper explores how volunteering was included in attempts to link sport, volunteering and social exclusion. The research examined the role of pre-volunteer programmes. Given that far less opportunities for actually volunteering existed than spaces on the pre-volunteer course, it could be argued that this was as much about job preparation as volunteering preparation. It is difficult also to assess the real impact – as the paper says – the impact on social exclusion is longitudinal. Nonetheless it would seem that the programme reached people in ways other projects haven’t and when the work is done to look at the benefits for those who volunteered it would be nice to see if the pre-volunteer programme stimulated others who didn’t volunteer at the games to go on and volunteer elsewhere.
Steven Howlett
Editor
