Volunteer Engagement post-Covid

Ticket prices: £40 non-members | £25 AVM members

Tickets are on sale until 5pm, Tuesday 11 April, so don’t delay, book today!

Are you thinking about how best to engage volunteers post-covid? Does the cost-of-living crisis mean you need to think about how you can do this cost effectively? How do you ensure your engagement is inclusive? This workshop will be exploring volunteer engagement, in person, virtual, blended and how we can ensure we are considering inclusivity in our engagement plans. Our speakers will be covering: 

• Learnings from an in-person/hybrid volunteer appreciation event in Aberdeen, that will hopefully be the first in a series of events across Scotland – the planning and considerations made, the delivery, the learning and how to blend with anything remote 
• Building an engaging virtual programme for volunteers; the key engagement technology, opportunities and tools that can be used and virtual best practice 
• Ensuring however engagement is delivered, it is an inclusive experience including sharing experiences of addressing Race Equity to ensure inclusive engagement 

Our speakers are Liz Wigelsworth and Ruth Zokas from Chest, Heart and Stroke Scotland; Matt Lynch from Moonshot and Rosie Ellingham and Najah Mijir from the Scouts.

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Proposed Agenda:

This is a half day event, starting at 9:30am, and will be on Zoom (read our Zoom tips for getting the best out of online events).  

9.30-9.45 networking

9.45-10.00 open and welcome

10.00-10.40 – Liz Wigelsworth & Ruth Zokas – Chest, Heart and Stroke Scotland – In person/blended engagement 

10.40-11.20 – Matt Lynch, Moonshot  – virtual engagement 

11.20-11.30 – Break 

11.30-12.10 – Rosie Ellingham & Najir Mijir, Scouts – ensuring engagement is inclusive 

12.10-12.30 Q&A 

Your joining instructions and Zoom link will be emailed the week before the event. 

About our speakers

Liz Wigelsworth

Liz has worked in the volunteering sector for over 15 years, developing volunteering programmes across a number of charities including the MS Society, Anthony Nolan and the Princes Trust. Currently Liz is the Head of Volunteering at Chest, Heart & Stroke Scotland – a charity that involves 1,000s of volunteers to raise funds, ensure the running of its shops, support people affected by chest, heart and stroke conditions and carry out micro actions across Scotland.    

Liz leads a team of five to harness the positive impact of volunteering across the charity. The team leads on the development and delivery of the volunteering strategy, ensuring volunteers have a great experience across the organisation, feel safe, supported, appreciated and empowered to become ambassadors for Chest Heart & Stroke Scotland in their communities. Liz is passionate that volunteering brings people together to tackle some of the major challenges we face including health and wellbeing and loneliness and isolation. 

Ruth Zokas

Ruth has worked in the charity sector for 15 years and has worked at Sense Scotland, Erskine, Maggie’s Centres, and now at Chest Heart & Stroke Scotland. Ruth started out working in the fundraising team and after 10 years moved into the volunteering team as she developed a passion for working with volunteers.

 Currently, Ruth is the Volunteer Development lead – Engagement, and her role is to communicate and motivate existing volunteers and over 150 volunteer line managers.

Matt Lynch

Matt’s experience with the Walt Disney Company early in his career began to shape his vision for how powerful a guest experience could be when you have an engaged and purpose driven front line team. He leveraged that experience to serve front liners in some amazing organizations both in the United States and the United Kingdom.

Matt served in Major League Baseball for the Atlanta Braves from 2007-2013 as Director of Guest Services, opened The College Football Hall of Fame in 2014 as Vice President, Fan Experience and relocated to the United Kingdom as Head of Guest Services at iconic Wembley Stadium from 2014-2016.  Matt was on the opening team of Disney’s fourth theme park, Animal Kingdom in 1998 and opened Disney’s London Production of The Lion King in 1999. Matt founded MoonShot in 2016 and has supported both front line and volunteer training and engagement projects with clients such as the NFL, City of London, City of Los Angeles, Women’s Euro 2022 and Formula 1 Miami Grand Prix.

Mission Highlights:

Opening Team: Disney’s Fourth Orlando Theme Park – Animal Kingdom – 1998

Opening Team: Disney’s London Theatre Production of The Lion King – 1999-2002

Director of Guest Services – The Atlanta Braves – 2007-2013

Opening Team: Vice President, Fan Experience – The College Football Hall of Fame – 2013-2014

Head of Guest Services – Wembley National Stadium Limited – 2014-2016

Rosie Ellingham & Najah Mijir – to follow

Making this event more accessible for you

We will always make captions available on Zoom, as standard. If you require lip speakers, please let us know: we can make up to two places available free of charge.

We may be able to send you slides in advance, if required. Please let us know when you check out.

If you need support to access this event, please let us know when you book. 

See our event and conference FAQs for more information on Zoom’s accessibility. If you have any questions ahead of booking, please do get in touch.

Terms and conditions of ticket sales

You can pay by credit card or request an invoice at the checkout. We do require payment to be made before the event.

The agenda is correct at time of publication. AVM will contact you about any significant changes in advance of the event.

See our full terms and conditions below, and familiarise yourselves with our cancellation policy, and payment terms below. 

We know that plans can change. Depending on when you cancel, we may be able to offer a partial ticket refund, or under certain circumstances we may be able to arrange for your ticket to be passed to one of your colleagues. As your ticket is unique to you, this includes the access links you have been sent, please get in touch with us if you need to pass your ticket on to a colleague. They will not be able to access the conference unless we have processed the swap. Where a non-member is taking a member’s place at the conference, we offer the option of purchasing membership for the non-member, or paying the balance of a non-member ticket.

AVM will not accept liability for any ability to attend this event due to technical issues with a delegate’s equipment. If technical difficulties prevent AVM from hosting this event, we will endeavour to reschedule the conference to another date, and a full or partial refund will be offered if the new date is unsuitable.