CEV member organisations

United Kingdom: Voluntary Action North Lanarkshire (Associate Member )

Contact information

Voluntary Action North Lanarkshire
84 Main Street
Wishaw ML2 7AB

Tel: +44 1698 358 866
Fax: + 44 1698 358 878

Email: manager[at]nlvda.org
Website: www.voluntaryactionnorthlanarkshire.org.uk

Member information

The Volunteer Centre North Lanarkshire is an agency which provides support, advice and developmental opportunities for volunteers and volunteer-engaging organisations in the North Lanarkshire (population 326,000) area of central Scotland.

The organisation’s origins, however, date back to 1981 when a group of people interested in promoting and encouraging volunteering had the foresight to create a local organisation to facilitate volunteering activity. Hence, the Monklands Volunteer Bureau was created, and this served the local area for 15 years. In 1996, a structure was put in place to allow every local authority area in Scotland to have a local volunteering development agency serving its public. The expanded local authority in which the Monklands Volunteer Bureau was based was North Lanarkshire. This was the birth of North Lanarkshire Volunteering Development Agency (NLVDA), which covered a much wider region than the previous Bureau.

The organisation today is still registered NLVDA, but now trades as the Volunteer Centre North Lanarkshire following a standardisation of all local volunteering development agencies in Scotland in 2002 to a new “Volunteer Centre” branding.

A Positive Sign of Intent

The Volunteer Centre North Lanarkshire was delighted in 2004 to become one of the first non-national volunteering development organisations to become a CEV member. Volunteer Centre Manager Mary McNeil commented:

“By becoming a member of the CEV, the Volunteer Centre has been able to link to many partner agencies across Europe that we would previously not have had the opportunity to work with, which has been great for us as an organisation. In 2005, we hope for continued partnership working and look forward to the opportunity to bring expertise in citizenship education and new ideas to the CEV Network, and to learn from the considerable and diverse experience of established CEV members. All in all, we look forward to contributing to the continued development of volunteering across the European continent and thank all the European agencies who have supported our work in recent times.”

As well as managing the Volunteer Centre, Mary is also national representative of Employer Supported Volunteering in Scotland.

Playing Its Role in a Strong National Network

In 2002, a uniformed Network of local volunteering development agencies in Scotland was formed under the “Volunteer Centre” branding. Since then, the Volunteer Centre North Lanarkshire has played a vital role in volunteering development at a national level as well as locally. One such example of the Volunteer Centre’s national involvement is through a new project entitled “ASPIRE” which will be rolled-out in 2005. Through ASPIRE, the Volunteer Centre aims to increase the strength of the Volunteer Centre Scotland Network by delivering training on a range of volunteering-related subjects to staff from Volunteer Centre’s across Scotland. The project focuses on allowing Volunteer Centre’s to develop the capacity of their staff, to assess training needs analysis and provide support with Volunteer Centre’s gaining “Investors in People” status, a recognised award given to high quality performing organisations in the United Kingdom. Karl Monsen-Elvik, Deputy Manager of the Volunteer Centre, is National Convenor of the Volunteer Centre Scotland committee.

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