Doing it from your heart: The role of older women as informal volunteers

This paper explores the contributions made by older women to the Community as informal volunteers. It argues that ageing policy is not gender neutral and tends to ignore the contributions made by Women Outside paid work. As well as being ignored in policy, women's unpaid roles have been denigrated by some feminist commentators, who suggest that these roles Subordinate the position of women. The aim of the present paper is to explore the lived experiences of older women in relation to their informal volunteer roles, using role identity theory as a framework. The study utilizes data from a qualitative study Using focus group methodology. Findings demonstrate. that informal volunteering contributes to the women's identity and gives their lives meaning. These findings suggest that a more positive policy framework around ageing is needed to ensure that the worth of these contributions is recognised.

A community leadership web site project: Sustainability and other issues

This paper reports on an ongoing partnership between Queensland University of Technology and Volunteering Queensland regarding the development and revision of a website for community leaders. The website, designed in late 2003, was established to provide a range of learning activities for community leaders including a problem based learning activity, case studies of community leaders and a range of resources deemed significant for leaders in the community. To date, anecdotal evidence as well as some more hard evidence (i.e. number of visits to the site), indicates that the site appears to be a valuable resource for community leaders. The purpose of this paper was firstly to investigate the utility of the site and secondly to consider some bigger issues concerning its sustainability. To achieve this, the paper explores the perceptions of (i) a group of community leaders regarding the strengths and weaknesses of the site; and (ii) key stakeholders (from QUT and Volunteering Queensland) who participated in a focus group discussion to consider important issues relating to its management and sustainability. Themes emerging from the two groups are provided and implications for small scale partnership projects such as this one are discussed.