Worknow_Aotearoa_NZ

Aspiring Social Entrepreneur | Proactive Volunteer

I’d like to think of  the 60+ hours a week I volunteer as the work of an aspiring social entrepreneur, having labeled myself as such is rather vain of me when really I’m just a very proactive volunteer.

Volunteer or social entrepreneur ~ either way, it works for me.  I get to do what I love in my own way, on my own time, in hopes that the work I do now, will eventually pay off in terms of actually helping other people.

For me, volunteering is as much a part of my life/work landscape as my friends and family. I am immensely grateful to be surrounded by talented, passionate people that encourage and inspire the journey.  That said, I would not suggest I have a traditional outlook on volunteer work.

While I do collect for the Red Puppy Appeal, attend charity music events for the likes of Sea Shepherd and volunteer my social media skills for 350Aotearoa ~ volunteering is about the 60 hours+ a week that I invest as work experience in order to create my own future work/life path.

my talent and time | pursuing the dream

It is as true for me as anyone else on this planet that our most valuable personal resources are our own talent and time.  Importantly, you get to decide how you value yourself and how you apply your time and talent. What we have to give and gain from this life is up to us to decide.

On that basis,  I’m going with a “priceless” valuation on my time and talent:) I work because I hope that what I do is of much greater value to me than a monetary value might prescribe.  From Worknow to Augmented Reality to Social Development Banking & Funding models to communities like the Distiller and the Social Innovation Hub as well as work on the board of trustees with KUMA ~ the Southern Maori Business Network and The Malcam Charitable Trust Foundation. It may seem eclectic, but all this unpaid work caters to my aspirations to help people using technology to connect and harness our collective potential

the highs and lows of being “unemployable”

One could point out that I am unemployable ~ which in the traditional sense of a 40hour work week would be an understatement.  No “employer” would pay me to do what I do, there is no job description that would comprehensively cover what I set out to achieve or my methods for doing so.

The stigma attached to the label of being  “unemployed” is sometimes a challenge. It’s difficult to explain what I do in any quick way except to say that I volunteer, a lot. To quickly  summaries my work life often strips from my description all the passion and well being I enjoy. To explain in even basic detail often means a five minute spiel all about me and the amazing talented people I know.

I sometimes struggle to share with the fact that I love my job, that I don’t get paid and actually could achieve nothing without the many many people that I work alongside. Some days I feel like a fake and it’s easy to see why no one pays me.  Other days it all just comes together, it makes sense and I absolutely trust that I’m on the right path.  If it is about the journey vs the destination, then I’m loving the ride.

Project based work life

Although only one of my current projects Worknow, is all  about supporting my project based work life. Perhaps through determined belief and in living the lifestyle we promote I can show that volunteer work experience ~ choosing what you love and applying your talent to achieving your dreams ~ does pay. Perhaps not immediately, perhaps never in terms of cold hard cash but in so many other ways, that money could not buy.

If you aspire to entrepreneurship and work life freedom, if you seek to discover and live your talents and life with passion and joy then potentially, we can help.  Your talent profile here will help you connect with the growing number of people that share our work life outlook . Tell us about your talents and skill your interests and values, and we’ll match you with work opportunities. What do you have to gain? that is up to you to define.

Community Action Group: Port Otago Dredging

Port Otago’s application to dredge the harbor, expand the existing port, and dump 7.2 million cubic meters of spoil six kilometers off Tairoa Head was notified to the public last Friday.

Take part in a community action project that will have real impact on the future of Dunedin City.

Apply your legal skills to an environmental conservation project and discover first hand how the public submission process works.
We encourage all people concerned or opposed to the proposed Port Otago dredging to enter a submission to the Otago Regional Council by Friday 5pm August 2010.

“…Our task must be to free ourselves… by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and it’s beauty…” Albert Einstein

If you are interested in working with animals a good place to start would be your local SPCA

The mission of The Royal New Zealand SPCA is to advance the welfare of all animals in New Zealand by:

• Preventing cruelty to animals
• Alleviating suffering of animals
• Promoting our policies through education and advocacy

Volunteering with Animals

Do you have some spare time? Your local SPCA is always looking for more volunteers to help. Each centre will have different needs; you could help to man the phones, or walk the dogs, or even get right into it by cleaning out cages. The jobs are varied and the work is rewarding.

If you’re interested in volunteering with animals and you have the following knowledge and skills:-

1) respect for animals
2) basic animal care knowledge or willingness to learn
3) ability to work unsupervised at times
4) use your initiative

Please check out Otago SPCA: Volunteer Animal Attendant or create your talent profile to connect with opportunities to work with animals in your community.

Tomahawk Smaill’s Beachcare Trust, Dunedin NZ

Tomahawk Smaill’s Beachcare Trust is a non profit organisation that aims to develop community supported environmental restoration, education and awareness.

TSBT started in 2000 with the aim of replenishing the local environment by replanting, dune stablisation and catchment care. Since then the trust has been active with dune clean ups, planting days and community engagement.

The nursery, managed by Gaileen Ross will produce around 4000 eco-sourced native plants each year and is the hub of the Beach care movement. As a charitable trust TSBT is always keen for volunteers. As an environmental volunteer with TSBT you can:-

• gain hands on learning in horticulture
• gain hands on learning in plant propagation,
• learn about local native dune species.

Aramoana Conservation Group

The community volunteer team cares for Aramoana beaches and the salt marsh. People are welcome to join the relaxed volunteer team during Spring – Autumn. As an environmental volunteer with TSBT you can:

• build team work skills
• improve your botanical knowledge
• learn about local eco-systems
• nurture an appreciation for nature

Orokonui Eco Sanctuary

In less than 10 years, the Orokonui Ecosanctuary has become the only place on mainland South Island of New Zealand where native birds, animals and insects can live a life safe from predators.

Volunteers are provided with direction, a safe walking environment and any equipment and materials needed. Contribute to a project that provides a legacy to future generations, gain new skills and meeting like-minded people. At the moment we need new volunteers for:

• Planting and weeding
• Pest and fence monitoring
• Track building and maintenance
• Regular care of habitat areas

Conservation Volunteers Needed, Dunedin NZ

If you’re willing to learn and happy to work outdoors then gather your friends and workmates and come help out as a conservation volunteer. For more information on volunteer work opportunities check out our volunteer marketplace.

If the right job is not here yet then simply create your talent profile and receive volunteer opportunities that match your talent, skills and interests as they are posted.

If your a community or charitable trust that needs volunteers please register a profile to promote volunteer work on our website.

“Chose a job you love, and you will never have to Work a day in your life.” Confucius

Ancient wisdom. As true today as it was when Confucius – China’s most famous teacher, philosopher, and political theorist 551-479 BC – wrote it some 2500 years ago.

Here at Worknow we believe you can find a job you love by connecting with work opportunities that match your talents, skills and interests, passion, values and experience.

It’s taken four times longer than first thought and although still under testing and development we now have [ pause for drum roll & trumpeting fanfare to sound in my head ] Version 1.0! of our website live! Basically, this means a couple of new but important features & changes.

New Types of Talent Profiles

People can now register a talent profile as one of different types of entities:-

• Individuals: Can post requests and offer services on all work
• Business: Can post requests and offer services on all work

• Community Group : Can post requests but can not offer services
• Charity Organisation: Can post requests but can not offer services

With only a single field now for keywords we hope this change will help people focus keywords around the talents, skills and values relevant to the dream job they want to work toward.

We will work on improving profiles, without adding complexity, in the next round of development.

New Volunteer Marketplace

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Anyone can now request volunteer help.We are working to populate the marketplace with volunteer work opportunities. Please if you know of anyone that needs volunteer help tell them that they can list with us at $0. If you are interested in volunteering or finding volunteers please include “volunteer” in your keywords, for now.

New Workspace Workflow

We’ve implemented a new work flow to make it more clear – for each party to a trade – where progress stands. We’ve integrated a flow chart to highlight which stage the trade is at and applied colour indicators:

• Green represents work requiring your attention
• Blue suggests it is pending attention from the other party
• Dark Grey finished / closed.

A summary of your activity – Number of Trades; Number of Invites: Work Requiring your Attention vs Pending – is visible at all times in the top right corner of the web page : We hope this makes it just all the more easier to respond to work invites, requests and keep everything progressing

Changes to Time Trade

We removed the time offers section because it doubled up on the information required on people’s talent profiles. Basically all your skills and talents, strengths and passion, values, interests and experience need to be listed as keywords on your talent profile because

the keywords on your profile are how we can match you to work opportunities and the “job you love”.

Previous Development Changes

• Invite to Trade: Matching talent & work opportunities: Now each time you post a request Worknow can suggest people for you to invite to view your trade by matching keywords on your post with the keywords listed within their talent profile.
• Invite to Trade: You can also invite people you know to view your trade by creating a simple email invite. We’d like to invite you today to start trading & earn time credits simply by signing in and responding to our request for people to help test the trade functionality
• Group Marketplace: We’ve established Groups functionality to enable existing communities to self organise and build community specific marketplaces. At this stage groups are created on request by providing a group name and contact email to renee@worknow.co.nz
• Trade Status: We’re testing a new format for the Workspace to make it easier to understand trade status and actions pending on open trades. And we’ve updated the my posts page to provide a little more detail on the trades you have posted.

Worknow Start Up Tips & Tools

This is a copy of the email sent to member following the recent development update. I use and would highly recommend Mailchimp At start up stage Mailchimp provides all the email capabilities and performance measures you’ll need free of change when you have < 500 subscribers and send < 3000 emails. Brilliant!

Volunteer work experience is a testament to one’s willingness to work and one of many steps towards your dream job

We support volunteering because it can help people explore new fields of work, develops a service orientated work ethic and gain valuable work experience which in turn expands your work horizons.Some of the skills volunteers can develop include:-

* Leadership & team building skills
* Relationship building skills
* Communication skills
* Negotiation skills
* Creative thinking skills
* Organisation & time management skills

New Zealand is a leading nation in contribution made by volunteers.

A 2008 study of the New Zealand non-profit sector estimated that volunteers make up 67% of nonprofit workforce equal to 133,799 full time positions.

This represents 6.4% of the economically active population.

Research indicates volunteering can offer mental health benefits. In fact it may even help people to perform better in their paid work role. The many benefits of volunteering include:

* Volunteering offers an intrinsic sense of achievement and personal reward
* Volunteering builds peoples confidence through new challenges and experiences
* Volunteers will meet new people by actively participating in their community
* Volunteer work experience can help people explore new fields of work
* Volunteers can learn and develop transferable work skills
* Volunteering develop work ethic and looks great on your CV

Find Volunteer Work Experience

1. Register as a member of our talent community
2. Create your talent profile, entering keywords and phrases that describe your interests & values, skills & talents.
3. Interweb magik connects you with volunteer work opportunities that match your talent, skills and interests (keywords).

Catch22: Work Experience Required

You’ve got a great education, you’re keen to learn, you want to work and contribute to society yet it seems that to get the job that you want you need work experience, which first means you need to get a job

The transition from study to the workforce can be difficult even when you know exactly what is is you want and how you plan to get there.

Yet it is the minority of students that emerge from study that well prepared. More often than not, our work prospects and aspirations are about as clear as mud.

Talent vs Degree

I worry that our education system does not adequately prepare people for the realities of the workforce and that the career guidance taken up does little to inspire in young people the pursuit of the dream.

In fact in some cases, being sent off to talk to the local branch of some national or multinational company that has a internship programme that matches your degree, might be the completely wrong direction in terms of matching one’s talents and values.

As was indicated during a conversation I recently had with a final year commerce student (FYCS) – Majoring in Economics

Renee: So you’re final year right?, what do you wanna do next year? Work?
FYCS : Not really sure yet,
Renee: You can do anything you want, you know
FYCS:  I’m kinda interested in writing…
Renee: Yeah cool, I majored in journalism. What do you think is you greatest talent?
FYCS:  I’m not really sure…
Renee: Everyone’s got talents [usual expectant pause] ok then …how about looking at it like this. If you could have any job in the world what would you do?
FYCS: Writing, or design, maybe advertising?
Renee: So I’m hearing, something creative right?
FYCS: Yeah, but its not really my major”
Renee: Your major doesn’t really matter, it shows that you have discipline and you’ve already learnt the most important lesson, how to learn. Being able to learn, being able to solve problems you can take those skills anywhere. You can choose to do a job you will love.”
FYCS: But I worry about my grades”
Renee: Your grades won’t matter what matters is work experience. Find a company that you want to work with and offer to volunteer. It’s a foot in the door and I reckon volunteer work experience will trump your grades
FYCS: Thinks about this for a nanosecond and smiles
FYCS: You’ve just made me shift my idea of what I could do from here to here (indicating with hands an expanded vision)

While the above tale is unlikely to be a completely accurate replay – there were umms & ahhhh’s, frequent head nodding and gestures -  it’s the outcome that mattered.

It’s amazingly encouraging to have seen and heard someone gain even just an ounce more hope for the future. Score 1 to me! in favour of the pursuit of talent vs degree based career paths.

Volunteer Work Experience

We see volunteering as a highly effective means for young people to gain work experience, develop work ethic and build work skills.

Some of the skills volunteers can develop include:-

* Leadership & team building skills
* Relationship building skills
* Communication skills
* Negotiation skills
* Creative thinking skills
* Organisation & time management skills

Most importantly it is a testament to one’s willingness to work which, in my work experience, counts for a whole lot more than grades ever will. Welcome to the workforce people.

Four Simple Steps Towards Your Dream Job

It may seem too simple and idealistic but it’s worked for me. I love my job and would like to see more people living the work life balance that we enjoy

1. Identify you talents, your passion, your interest and values as it is these qualities when combined with work that will put you on the path to a job that you love!
2. Create you talent profile and list your talents, passion, interests and value and using the magik of the interweb we will match your talent profile with volunteer work opportunities
3. Put yourself out there to work and learn more about what motivates and inspires you
4. Gather  references that testify to your work experience so you can expand your options & pursue the dream then repeat

Pretty simple really. It’s about mindset and taking action don’t let others define your future for you. Start working towards you dream job, begin now.

Beta V1.0 Live 4:30pm Monday 31st May

It’s taken us a year, and four times longer than originally planned (luckily there was that recession) but we now have V1.0 of the online community marketplace live!

We are one step closer to achieving the goal of making it easier for us all to find volunteer work opportunities that match our talents, skills and interests.

Now that our design and development team have provided a marketplace the job becomes mine to find the people and groups that will benefit from our work and talent matching tools.

I hope, in collaboration with others to encourage more young people to volunteer

As life would have it, we live in a university town that is full of talented people pondering their future and with the support of brilliant teams like OUSA & Ignite perhaps the challenge to attract young volunteers will be shared.

If you are interested in volunteer work experience please create your talent profile today. N.B: we match you with all forms of work or potential new teams based on the keywords you include in your profile so list talents, interests, skills and passion because it’s time to start creating you dream job.

This year volunteering awareness week – June 20th – 26th will celebrate “Volunteering Across The Generations”.

In the lead up to this week Volunteering  NZ has again released statistics that testify to the generosity of our nation. Some of the outstanding facts and figures include:-

• More than 1,000,000 of us were actively involved in volunteer work in 2004
• New Zealander’s contribute 270 million hours of formal, unpaid work for non-profit organisations annually.
• The 270 million hours has been valued at almost $3.31 billion in the year ended March 2004.
• The highest number of  volunteers worked in primary/secondary education sub sector (16.1%),  sports clubs (13.5%) and in religious activities (11.4%)

For more information you can download a copy Facts & Figures on Volunteering in New Zealand or visit the Volunteering New Zealand Website

Volunteer Your Time and Talents

Volunteering is integral to the way of life we enjoy here in Aotearoa and we are all reliant on the generosity of volunteers on a regular basis; be it a sporting or cultural event, the church you attend or the community groups and activities we participate in.

HOW TO: Find Volunteer Work & Pay It Forward

1. Register as a member of our talent community
2. Create your talent profile, entering keywords and phrases that describe your interests & values, skills & talents.
3. Technology connects  you with volunteer work opportunities that match your talent, skills and interests (keywords).

Register your talent profile today

A recent study by researchers from the University of Konstanz (Germany) has found that volunteering can offer mental health benefits and may even help people to perform better in their paid work role.

Research was conducted via a 2-week diary study, with 105 employees to provide data for a total of 476 days. Research then examined relationships between the amount of time spent on volunteer work activities during leisure time, psychological non-work experiences in the evening, and work outcomes during the following working day.

Results confirmed the hypothesized positive relationships between the amount of time spent on volunteer work activities and psychological detachment from work, mastery experiences, and need satisfaction in the evening.

Positive relationships between the amount of time spent on volunteer work activities and psychological detachment from work and mastery experiences in the evening suggest volunteer work’s potential to provide a break from paid work and to offer opportunities for recovery experiences.

The study “Volunteer Work as a Valuable Leisure-Time Activity” was published online in the Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology