International Volunteer Day 2019 - Why We Volunteer 1!

Pictured Left to Right: Rex Porter, Chanh Tran, Samantha Agius, David Webb, Stathis Avramis, Flavia (Cheryl and Malcolm)

To continue the International Volunteer Day blogs, Connecting Up Inc. felt we should introduce you to some more of our wonderful volunteers, many who have been with us for some time through our SAcommunity Council Partnership Program with City of Prospect and Tea Tree Gully Councils, along with one or two brand new volunteers. Welcome to our Wednesday group.

Rex Porter
Rex graduated with a Mathematical Sciences degree from Adelaide University and worked at the Australian Bureau of Statistics in Adelaide, Melbourne, Canberra and Sydney. He has been volunteering with the City of Prospect in 2018 providing digital literacy training, before becoming a volunteer with Connecting Up in February this year as part of the Council Partnerships program where over 11 months he has lent his knowledge to update the SAcommunity directory. Rex writes more on his volunteer experience >>here. 

Chanh Tran
Chanh is a currently studying a Bachelor of Information Technology (Games and Entertainment Design) and is looking for future employment as a Help-Desk IT Support Officer within the IT field. Chanh is very new to our organisation (day 1) and we can't wait to learn more about him.

Samantha Agius
Samantha has a Bachelor of Arts (Major in Music Studies), a musician she composes, plays eight instruments including keyboard, piano and woodwind instruments. She currently volunteers with both Tea Tree Gully Council and Connecting Up as part of the Council Partnership program. Samantha writes more about her experience >>here.

A regular volunteer since November 2017, over 2 years Samantha has contributed to more than 2,800 records herself, Sam also checks entries, emails incoming and outgoing and responds to updates to keep the service humming along.

Samantha has previously volunteered for many groups over the years from telephone support at Red Cross to data entry at the Wilderness Society. Her volunteering efforts echoes her interest in detailed data entry and research, as her aim is to gain future employment in a similar field utilising her skills and experience.

David Webb
David graduated from social work and has worked in the Child and Family Welfare industry for more than 30 years and prior to retirement, more recently with NDIS recipients. David also volunteers across other community-focused organisations to continue to give back and stay involved, as well as enjoying the company of others that can be found in a work environment. 

David has volunteered with Connecting Up Inc. since September, working on the SAcommunity directory for 4 months, in particular on services within the Marion Council, to contribute his skills and continue to assist people access resources in their community, so that they can live more fruitful and engaged lives. 
 
Stathis Avramis
Stathis has studied a variety of fields he has a Bachelor of Arts (Major in Politics), moved to Library and Information Management then to Computing and Information Technology. He has worked in a bookshop and in a range of work related to computers, IT support and websites.

Stathis currently volunteers with Connecting Up Inc. and with the City of Prospect as part of the Council Partnership program. He lends his skills in IT to the SAcommunity volunteer program and his knowledge of politics, environmental activism and social justice to assist in updating the SAcommunity directory.

Stathis volunteers at Connecting Up Inc. as a practical means of giving back to the community, making connections with other organisations and to do something useful and organised. We have written more about Stathis work since he began March 2018 (1 year 10 months ago) >>here and also about his assistance with GovHack >>here.

Flavia
Flavia started volunteering in September 2017 as part of the Council Partnerships Program with the City of Prospect. In the 2 years 4 months since then she has been our networking link to the Prospect Community and assisted us in every City of Prospect Spring Fair event to promote and capture information on the community groups within this council area. (We have previously written about Flavia in National Volunteer Week >>here.)

Flavia has written several articles here>>https://sacommunity.org/blog/17092 about local Prospect community groups whilst assisting other volunteers (Stathis and Rex) in the Council Program at SAcommunity to keep the local Prospect area listings up-to-date for council and local community use, partnerships and networking.  

Cheryl (not pictured)
Cheryl began Volunteering in August 2014 and is our second longest serving volunteer to Malcolm, having undertaken a mixture of paid and volunteer work over the last 5 years.

Cheryl has a Bachelor of Arts (Psychology) and a strong background in the social government sector and customer service, her repertoire of telephone techniques are always demonstrated to new volunteers, as she is always on hand to assist with telephone training an area of in which she has great skill.

Cheryl is looking to find future employment in a customer service role and she writes about her volunteer experience >>here. 

Malcolm (not pictured)
Malcolm has been our offsite volunteer now since October 2013 and is our longest serving volunteer at over 6 years, contributing 15 hours every week to edit and update thousands of records perfectly across a myriad of community services. Malcolm's steadfastness and care in checking each record enables people to find assistive services and for services to find each other, to provide support and form networks in South Australia.

We would like to acknowledge and thank you for the commitment and support you have shown the SAcommunity service throughout 2019 and we also thank the volunteers we haven't mentioned here, whom have contributed to our service before transitioning into further study or paid roles in other organisations across SA for their work with us. 

Why we Volunteer - hear from our volunteers on the following blog posts
International Volunteer Day 2019

International Volunteer Day 2019 - Why We Volunteer 1!

International Volunteer Day 2019 - Why We Volunteer 2!

International Volunteer Day 2019 - Why We Volunteer 3!

International Volunteer Day 2019 - Why We Volunteer 4!

International Volunteer Day 2019 - Why We Volunteer 5!