08 Volunteer Programme
Liverpool is European Capital of Culture 2008. The City has prepared a world class programme of events and
festivals and is expecting to host an extra 1.7 million visitors during the year. In recognising the importance of ensuring that all visitors are made 'welcome' when they come to Liverpool, the City started its preparations early.
In 2005, its 08 Volunteer programme was launch and recruitment began for an army of friendly faces, people able to 'welcome' the world to Liverpool. Now some three years later, the volunteer programme has grown from the initial twenty five when it was first launched in 2005, to just under one thousand today.
The programme is recognised as one of the best volunteer programmes in the country. In 2006 the Volunteer Manager, Mary Beaumont, scooped one of Wirral Tourism Board's awards for excellence.
More recently the 08 Volunteer Programme Team, were recognised by Northwest Young Enterprise and won their 'Supporter of the Year 2008' award.
The success of the 08 Volunteer Programme lies in its uniqueness. It is a family friendly programme and has many
aspects: active volunteering and social and personal development. Volunteers choose which events they would like to actively support. They have opportunities to meet new people and make new friends, whilst at the same time developing their skills by completing a number of optional training courses.
These courses are particularly aimed at helping unemployed volunteers return to the labour market. More recently, opportunities have been made available that allow unemployed volunteers to link closely to one of the City's other programmes aimed at supporting unemployed people, the new 'Shop for Jobs' programme, which acts as a conduit for the City's retail vacancies.
