International Volunteer Day, December 5 2011, Celebrated at BMW Edge, Fed Square

Suzanne Teese, CEO, Greatconnections

I acknowledge the Wurrundjeri people of the Kulin Nation as the traditional owners of the land we are meeting on this evening.

I also want to acknowledge:

• The Honourable Mary Wooldridge, Minister for Community Services, Mental Health, and Women's Affairs.
• Lynne Landy, Founding Patron, Greatconnections. Lynne humbly contributes in a voluntary capacity, to the civic and cultural life of Victoria in so many ways. Lynne had the foresight to establish Greatconnections in 2006 after supporting her husband, John Landy, as Governor of Victoria through two terms. In this role Lynne watched, listened and learnt about the needs of the community sector and had the vision to see how changing demographics could be leveraged for community benefit. Thanks Lynne for your foresight. (applause)
• Greatconnections Volunteers. Today is International Volunteer Day. This year's celebrations are significant because 2011 is the 10th Anniversary of the United Nations International Year of Volunteers. Celebrations are taking place all around the world to recognise the contribution of volunteers in their communities. Please show your appreciation of our Greatconnections volunteers here this evening. (applause)

Thanks to Golden Gurus and Fed Square for sponsoring this event.

Golden Gurus is a national program aiming to recognise the valuable contribution that Mature Age people make to Australian communities and small businesses. For more information about Golden Gurus take a postcard from our information desk as you leave.

Fed Square is Melbourne’s number one civic space so we are delighted to be here in the BMW Edge Theatre tonight. Before you leave the city tonight, I hope you can make time to check out the ‘Spirit of the Square’, Fed Square’s Christmas installation. Remember that Fed Square has free WiFi so if you have a Twitter account you are most welcome to join the event conversation.

I’d now like to tell you a little about Greatconnections and our volunteers. Greatconnections is a micro not for profit that connects mature aged volunteers who have professional skills and business experience with Not-for-Profit organisations in need of support. As a skilled volunteer provider, Greatconnections is unique in two key ways:

1. We are not a web based matching service. Our team of volunteer Client Managers provide a personalised consultancy service that offers thick value to our Not for Profit member organisations.

2. Our volunteers are aged over 50 so have the time and motivation to make a significant impact on the capacity of the Not for Profit organisations they serve.

Greatconnections is hosting this evening to bring attention to the contribution senior Victorians are making to civic life through skilled volunteering. As well as adding value and building capacity within community organisations, the volunteering experience can change our understanding of ourselves in relation to the world. Ubuntu (OOBOONTOO), an African philosophy, explains this very well.

According to Ubuntu, there exists a common bond between us all and it is through this bond, through our interaction with our fellow human beings, that we discover our own human qualities. Or as the Zulus would say, "Umuntu Ngumuntu Ngabantu", which means that a person is a person through other persons. We affirm our humanity when we acknowledge that of others.
The South African Nobel Laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu describes Ubuntu as:

"It is the essence of being human. It speaks of the fact that my humanity is caught up and is inextricably bound up in yours. I am human because I belong. It speaks about wholeness, it speaks about compassion. A person with Ubuntu is welcoming, hospitable, warm and generous, willing to share. Such people are open and available to others, willing to be vulnerable, affirming of others, do not feel threatened that others are able and good, for they have a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that they belong in a greater whole. They know that they are diminished when others are humiliated, diminished when others are oppressed, diminished when others are treated as if they were less than who they are.”

I now wish to introduce the Honourable Mary Wooldridge, Minister for Community Services, Mental Health, and Women’s Affairs who will be launching the Greatconnections  ‘Skilled Volunteering – Building Capacity Project Report.’

Minister Wooldridge has a deep understanding of the community sector. Prior to entering Parliament in 2006, Mary was the Chief Executive Officer of the Foundation for Young Australians and Chair of the Commonwealth Advisory Committee on Homelessness.

Mary is currently a Director of the Otis Foundation and has previously served on the Boards of the Breast Cancer Network Australia, Foundation Boroondara and Trinity College.

Please welcome the Honourable Mary Wooldridge. (applause)

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1st December 2010,
Greatconnections Reception at Government House

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