Volunteer Hub

from The Vegan 2020 Issue 1

Media highlights

Kaya Gromocki, Supporter Services Coordinator (Volunteering, Engagement and Outreach)

I’d like to say a huge thank you to everyone who has volunteered over the past three months. Meeting lots of our enthusiastic and friendly volunteers has really helped me to settle into my new role as quickly as possible.

In October I met super helpful events volunteers at VegFest London who engaged wonderfully with the public. Here in Birmingham I’ve worked with our lovely office volunteers, and over the phone I’ve chatted to lots of members of our Community Network, all of whom have been generous enough to share their stories and experiences of vegan outreach with me.

Media volunteers As the profile of veganism rises, so does the number of requests The Vegan Society receives from media outlets to give interviews and statements. This is where the assistance of volunteers comes in useful. Not only do they allow us to present the facts of veganism to as many listeners, viewers and readers as possible, but they are also able to share their own unique experiences. Being able to showcase the many and varied perspectives of living a vegan lifestyle is of great value to the movement.

An excellent example of this is media volunteer Paul Youd. Our Media Officer Dominika Piasecka was very pleased when Paul volunteered to do an interview on BBC Radio Somerset for World Vegan Day. Paul spoke with confidence on his motivations for going vegan and the positive impacts he has seen on his health over the last 51 years of following a vegan diet. Paul was able to impress the interviewer with his account of keeping fit in later life, as he explained his goal of completing one million press-ups between the ages of 80 and 90, no doubt inspiring many listeners too.

If you would be interested in volunteering for media interviews or putting yourself forward as a case study, then please contact media@vegansociety.com and we will be able to add you to our bank of dedicated volunteers who are prepared to tell their stories to the media. We are always looking for new case studies, as we often get specific requests for certain demographics, such as vegan fathers in their 40s. The more willing volunteers we have on our database the more easily we can showcase veganism as the positive life choice that it is.

Office volunteers Our volunteers are an eclectic and experienced group of all ages. Nisha Cardoza is 18, and at the end of 2019 she undertook a six-week placement in the Campaigns, Policy and Research Team. Nisha wanted to volunteer because The Vegan Society’s methods of advocating for veganism align exactly with her own. She really enjoys the political work that she does within her placement, and one of her favourite tasks so far has been analysing the manifestos of major political parties. She says, “It’s interesting to see what MPs have to say about some key issues The Vegan Society is

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Thank you to all of our media volunteers

Vegan Society staff and volunteers at VegFest London

Signing up new members

Volunteer Liem acts as vegan Society photographer for the day 2 3 4 1

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working on changing. Now we must urge them to address these in parliament.”

For Nisha, seeing the influence that our campaigns have has been especially rewarding. She loves seeing the responses that members of the public share after hearing back from their local MPs about vegan issues. When asked what it’s like to volunteer at the Vegan Society office every day, she responded, “It’s lovely! I’m very thankful that this placement is my first office experience because everybody is understanding and always willing to help. I also do many different things – I research suppliers for events, guests for parties, send out packs for people wanting to veganise their town, reply to general enquiries and much more! Above everything, it’s rewarding to think that you’re supporting people on their vegan journey.” In the future Nisha plans to improve animal rights through legislation and to work on getting even more vegan options on the market.

Get in touch Currently we are recruiting volunteers to join our Community Network. The network is made up of organisers and advocates who undertake local action in their hometowns with support and instruction from us. If you are interested in joining the network, then please email Kaya on volunteer@vegansociety.com or take a look at the role descriptions on our website.

Volunteer of the season

Introducing Alice Wibberley, an office volunteer who specialises in organising our archive materials.

Tell me a bit about when and why you went vegan It was initially environmental reasons that encouraged me to do Veganuary in 2019. Becca, my best friend from university, was my vegan role model – she gave me tips and showed me that it was easy. Since then, I’ve made loads of new friends through our uni VegSoc. I now feel more passionate than ever about veganism, for more reasons than I initially had.

Why did volunteering appeal to you? The archive project itself was a really exciting thing to be involved with, and as a history student, spending time among old documents and publications definitely appealed to me.

I think we’ll have to rent out another building to store it all in at the rate it’s going – there’s so much material! In a box, there could be anything from leaflets to letters, and the main work is trying to date and categorise it. It’s very satisfying when a huge box of stuff is finally sorted and catalogued.

I’m very lucky to have the opportunity to create a brand-new archive – I think this is something even full-time archivists would like to do! It’s good to know that I’m helping to preserve history, and someone might be thankful for the work I’ve done.

Have you found anything particularly interesting or unusual? There are some very interesting memorabilia: some cool T-shirts, a few vegan Christmas cards, various stickers. It’s interesting to see the different approaches used by the society to encourage people to go vegan over the years. What interests me most is old recipes and catering guides – a lot of it doesn’t sound too appealing, so I have a lot of respect for vegans of the 1950s who ate things like ‘soya slices’ and ‘nut cutlets’.

What kind of skills have you picked up during your time here so far? Finding out the rough date of things is a skill I’m continuing to develop. It can be very frustrating when there’s no useful information, so it involves a lot of detective work. Perseverance is also key – maintaining a vision of the finished archive is vital, especially when I’m lost in a huge pile of administrative documents and wondering why anyone would find it interesting.

What do you most enjoy about volunteering? The work itself is fascinating, and you never know what you’ll find. The Vegan Society is a great environment to work in – people are always recommending places to eat and new foods to try. I’ve met some lovely people.