My Volunteer Experience - Rex Porter

Photo: Rex Porter SAcommunity Team Member at the Connecting Up Office, Infoxchange

Our Volunteer Rex Porter
Rex has been regularly volunteering since 22 March 2019, as part of the SAcommunity Volunteer Partnership Program in conjunction with the City of Prospect. Rex has a degree in Mathematical Science and has extensive experience working in the Australian Government sector, specifically the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

An active volunteer Rex works with both Connecting Up and at Prospect Council's Digital Hub in the library, more recently with their Community bus service. "At this stage of life, I'm not working and I have time on my hands where I can make a voluntary contribution to the community," he says.

Rex is 'shared' with us from the council along with Prospect council volunteers Flavia and Stathis, to assist SAcommunity update community services in the Prospect area. His work on the SAcommunity directory assists the council and residents to find and communicate with local organisations, with the City of Prospect receiving data exports for e-campaigns used for community engagement, consultation, grants and research. 

Total Hours 1,675 This Year 749 Joined 22 March 2019 Last Check-in 13 December 2024  

Photo: Rex Porter in some of his bold, bright shirts bringing colour to the office and simply making our day!

SAcommunity wanted to highlight our affection for 'the old guard' our experienced and established SAcommunity veterans. People who make up our core team, return regularly each week to volunteer and keep the service running.

They assist in decision-making, idea development and implementation, check and create processes, and critically, help our new volunteers and interns find their feet. We felt we were more than overdue to introduce, acknowledge and thank some of our team members. 

Photo: Volunteers Rex Porter, Blake Kennison, Stathis Avramis and Hang Zhang (after cake!)

Rex explains his Volunteer Information Officer role: "At Connecting Up I help to update SAcommunity, a directory of community service organisations.  This directory is used by many people when they are looking for services and also by state and local governments when contacting community organisations. I’m playing my part in keeping this valuable directory up to date. Hopefully this will also help community organisations in gaining access to government grants." he says.
 
Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, Rex worked in the Digital Hub at the Prospect Library, assisting people with their digital devices. "At the City of Prospect, I volunteer in the Digital Hub in the library. I provide one on one assistance to people with their digital products - mainly phones, tablets and laptop computers. I find that many new users of these devices are scared that they might damage their equipment. I enjoy encouraging people to have a go.  People often come in for several visits and it’s good to see their skills improving as they go." 

More recently Rex has been volunteering with the Community Bus service, where he helps older people travel locally for library visits, grocery shopping and day trips. 

Photo: L - R Tina Vuong, Customer Engagement Manager, Infoxchange, Pankaj Chhalotre, Head of Connecting Up, Volunteer Stathis Avramis and Rex Porter National Volunteer Week 2021 

Specifically, Rex's degree in Mathematical Science and his extensive experience working in the Australian Government sector, specifically the Australian Bureau of Statistics is greatly beneficial to the SAcommunity service. His understanding of the government sector has proven useful on multiple occasions when determining where services belong, their hierachy and lineage, and in identifying their parent bodies, particularly with changes to departmental names and/or responsibilities over time.


Image: Flavia with Rex Porter at the Connecting Up Office

In the SAcommunity program, Rex also takes on various information management projects, updating critical directory categories such as services providing food assistance, to ensuring record fields are correct across councils and electorates for data exports, and for use by both Data Analytics Team and Media and Communications Team to improve records and increase data use. Rex also welcomes and helps new volunteers to the service, assists newcomers in practicing their telephone techniques, and provides a refreshing dose of realism and humour to the office alongside his fantastic shirt collection.


Photo: Volunteer Rex assisting Intern Stephanie Hoi Ching Wu to contact organisations for media releases


Image: Rex Porter assisting Volunteer Hang Zhang practice Telephone Techniques

This professional development opportunity allows us to learn more about the Microsoft 365 Apps – Sharepoint, OneDrive and Teams and how to best utilise some of their features in day-to-day work activities

IX Lunch & Learn Sessions Surplus for Purpose - Tomer Ginel - Chief Financial Officer 16 April 2024

This professional development session enables participants to learn how understanding financials can help us deliver sustainable impact at scale, and what is important for everyone to know about finances.

Photo: Intern Gilianne Restor practicing Telephone Techniques with Volunteer Rex Porter

"I enjoy volunteering. I get to meet all sorts of people and pass on the skills I've gained over the years," he says. Rex enjoys being part of a diverse volunteer team, which comprises of people from various ages, cultural and educational backgrounds who are eager to share their skills, knowledge and experiences with others. He is pleased that the time he has spent volunteering has made a tangible difference to those in the community who are seeking information on community organisations that can help them and that they can participate in. ~ Thank you Rex!

Training and Development - Digital Learning Platform

Rex has had the opportunity to understand more about data analytics in the not-for-profit sector, and was provided with access to the Connecting Up Digital Learning platform, a training and development online learning platform with a selection of relevant live webinars and recorded webinars, workshops and webcons from a range of subject-matter experts who also have a deep experience with not-for-profits.

 

Professional Development at Infoxchange is a balance of approximately 70% project / 20% peer-to-peer learning / 10% formal learning. For the SAcommunity Team there is approximately 15 hours of project work, 3 hours of peer-to-peer learning, and 1 hour of online webinar with 30 minutes of feedback, to reflect and strengthen team members understanding of what was learnt and what their personal takeaways were from these educational sessions facilitating life-long learning. 

Volunteers undertake 4 hours a week: 2hrs 48mins project; 48 mins peer-to-peer; 24 mins formal learning
Volunteers undertake 7.5 hours a week: 5hrs 15min project; 1hr 30mins peer-to-peer; 45mins formal learning
Volunteers (such as Rex) undertake 15hours a week (max): 10hrs 30mins project; 3hrs peer-to-peer; 1hr 30mins formal learning.

 

Relevant webinars, workshops and webcons selected by Rex have included:

AI 101: Empowering NFPs for the digital era - 21 February 2024

AI opportunities, risks and benefits for NFPs - 23 February 2024

 

AI for social impact - 23 February 2024

Generative AI for NFPs - 27 February 2024 & Recording 10 May 2024
Understand the basics of generative AI, explores realistic and relatable examples being used to evaluate and improve an organisation’s impact and efficiencies and guides the audience through crafting prompts to generate optimal outputs. 

How we introduced ethical AI into our NFP - 1 March 2024

Learn how the innovation team at Justice Connect, a not-for-profit providing legal services for people in need, implemented AI into their organisation, and trained and developed their AI model to help connect people with the right services, faster. 

 

Protecting your Microsoft 365 Tenant from cyber threats - 5 March 2024
valuable insights into managing and safeguarding their non-profit's Microsoft 365 environment

Getting Started with MS Fabric - 15 March 2024
Microsoft Fabric, a comprehensive data analytics platform. Fabric combines new and existing components from services such as Power BI and Azure PaaS. Learn analytics, data integration and AI capabilities all in one platform

 

Power Apps - Capture NFP data & Digitise workflows without coding - 22 March 2024
Develop Power Apps, create workflows, and easily automate processes

Social Media Strategy Development - 3 April 2024
 A robust social media strategy will outline your key stakeholder groups, the platforms where they will likely be hiding and the type of content that will appeal to them to ensure success with social media.

Advanced Cyber Security for 365 in an AI-world - 19 April 2024
- Advanced insights and strategies for strengthening cyber security defences in an AI-world

Cyber Security Essentials for NFP staff - 17 April 2024 
- How to identify phishing emails and messages using the “seven tips to catch a phish”.
- Key cyber security challenges in keeping information secure and avoiding data breaches
- How to implement key measures to protect important and sensitive information.

Inclusive Technology for accessibility with Microsoft 365  - 7 May 2024

Project Management fundamentals - 16 May 2024; 22 May 2024
Project management theory and practice using a case study.

Getting started with Power BI for data analysis and visualisation -17 May 2024
Basics of Power BI

Data Basics: Getting started with NFP data - 19 June 2024 


Image: National Volunteer Week Celebrations 2024: Rex Porter, Violet, Jamie, David, Camille, Jay, Olivia, Alexander, Pujan and Stathis