Tag Archives: abroad

In Budapest soon & looking for more European gigs

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It’s looking very likely I will be in Budapest in late January 2011 to perform some training (more on that as details emerge). I would be happy to stick around Europe for a week or even two for other training gigs. If you are in Europe and are interested in booking me for a training the first or second week of February, please contact me.

While most of my training and consulting gigs still come from outside the USA, even though I live in the USA now, in the last 14 months, I’ve done more training presentations locally, in the place I’ve living, than I have ever done in more than 15 years of training — including when I lived in Austin, Texas. Currently, I’m living in the Pacific Northwest, between Salem and Portland, Oregon, and so far, since moving to this part of the world, I’ve done trainings for the Nonprofit Network Southwest Washington in Vancouver, for HandsOn/United Way of the Mid-Willamette Valley in Salem, the Oregon Commission for Voluntary Action & Service/Oregon Volunteers/AmeriCorps, Friends of Family Farmers, Qwest Pioneers Volunteer Network, the Northwest Oregon Volunteer Administrators Association (NOVAA), and the Portland Hostels.

Thank you, Oregon and Washington!

 

International Volunteer Day for Economic and Social Development

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December 5 – today – is International Volunteer Day for Economic and Social Development, as declared by the United Nations General Assembly per its resolution 40/212 in 1985.

This is not a day to honor only international volunteers; the international in the title describes the day, not the volunteer. It’s a day to honor, specifically, those volunteers who contribute to economic and social development. Such volunteers deserve their own day. Such volunteers are part of the reason I bristle at all the warm and fuzzy language used about volunteers.

I think it’s a shame to try to turn the day into just another day to celebrate any volunteer — there are plenty of days and weeks to honor all volunteers and encourage more volunteering; why not keep December 5 specifically for volunteers who contribute to economic and social development, per its original intention?

And just to be clear: by volunteer, I mean someone who is not paid for his or her service, and if he or she has a “stipend”, it covers only very essential expenses so the volunteer can give up employment entirely during his or her stint as a volunteer, rather than the stipend being as much, if not more, than some mid and high-level government workers of a country are making. Yes, that’s a dig.

Here’s how I volunteer.