Older People

From creative writing to seated exercise and weekly quizzes, Getting Together Matters brings older people from across the UK together online to have fun and take part in a range of free events and activities during the pandemic.

Building capacity in volunteering within Health and Social Care

RSVP in Forth Valley encourages and assists older people to use their skills and experience to volunteer and keep active in retirement.

RSVP West is a key region for our RSVP (Retired and Senior Volunteer Programme) and covers Bristol, North Somerset, South Gloucestershire and Bath & North East Somerset.

Sporting Chance invites older men to join in activities and exercise groups from walking football to arm chair exercise, Aquasize to reminiscence sessions.

All local authorities have a statutory duty to provide independent visitors to all children in care (aged 8 – 16+) who would benefit. In Hounslow, London, we’ve been providing an Independent Visitor Service – Hounslow Allies – for over 12 years. We also run Grandmentors in Hounslow. Grandmentors is an intergenerational mentoring programme that matches … Continued

David is 79 and has been volunteering as a schools reading volunteer with Volunteering Matters since 2000. He told us about his favourite parts of the role, and shared some stories from his time in primary schools in Wales.

Karen heard about Grandmentors through the local business community, and is already seeing a great difference in her mentee, only a few weeks into supporting her as a volunteer.

Over the past few months the One Small Step Project has had no shortage of updates, and we thought there would be no better time to share them with you than to round up 2017!

When 90 year old Hartcliffe resident Rose was approached to take part in a Bristol Ageing Better intergenerational learning project, she wasn’t keen on speaking directly with the children, so Volunteering Matters found a way for her to get involved on her terms.

Even though Darina works 3 days a week as a property lawyer, she makes time to volunteer when she can with LifeLines in Brighton.

Sandy, 70, from Stirling has been volunteering with our Handyperson Project for the past 10 years and he told us what a day in his volunteer role looks like.

As part of our Older People Focus week, Nora told us about her experience of being part of HealthLink, which supports older people to get to their healthcare appointments.

As part of our older people's focus week, we chatted to one of our long-serving volunteers about her experience as a telephone befriender, and found out what motivates her in her role.

"I've met all sorts of people. It's great to share all our stories and experience the pleasure in volunteering"

Our Brighton-based LifeLines volunteers were joined by two very special guests from Strictly Come Dancing, and were featured in the Daily Mail and The Argus.

Our long-running Action Earth scheme is celebrating the one millionth hour of volunteering time given by volunteers on its funded projects this decade!

Seventy supporters raised £5,000 for Grandmentors, an inter-generational award-winning project of Volunteering Matters. The money will help to provide weekly support for young care leavers over a 6-12 month period, ensuring greater well-being, autonomy and career prospects.

  Volunteering Matters is this week’s players of People’s Postcode Lottery Charity of the Week. We feature on their website here. Every year thanks to support from players of People’s Postcode Lottery, tens of thousands of vulnerable and disadvantaged people in communities across England, Scotland and Wales benefit from the support of Volunteering Matters. Our partnership … Continued

LifeLines’, a volunteer-led programme which provides social activities for retired people in Brighton and Hove, celebrated its amazing volunteers at an awards reception to mark Volunteers’ Week. 30 Volunteers were treated to a tea at the Old Ship Hotel. Karen Bowlas, the project manager for ‘Lifelines’, said. “By celebrating our volunteers we are able to … Continued

The Ofsted report stated that ‘Schemes like the Grandmentors project provide children and young people with further opportunities to develop and reach their goals’.

We are excited to announce that Stockton Borough Council Public Health Team have provided Sporting Chance with a further two years of funding!

Volunteering Matters has launched a brand new, innovative volunteering network in Newcastle for organisations assisting people in mid to late life and Dementia.

Grandmentors volunteers and young people on our award-winning Grandmentors project enjoyed a trip to Parliament for a soft matching event.

Volunteering Matter’s Grandmentors programme won a prestigious national award recognising its transformational work in mentoring young care leavers. The Grandmentors programme received the honour in the Third Sector category at the recent National Mentoring Awards, in recognition of the 1:1 support that Grandmentors provide young people leaving care. One of the key areas that impressed … Continued

We've made the final shortlist for the National Mentoring Awards 2019 with our Grandmentors programme!

The 1st of October marks the International Day of Older Persons and we’d like to take the opportunity to celebrate the 8,700 older and retired people who share their time and talents each year by volunteering with us.

This month sees the launch of our brand new campaign to change young people’s perceptions of volunteering. Titled ' Revolution You ', our campaign aims to challenge preconceived notions of volunteering and encourage more young people to consider a gap year in the UK. 

Both Stockton Council and Wiltshire Council will be teaming up with Volunteering Matters to launch Grandmentors in their area, providing new inter-generational mentoring to young people leaving care. 

Funds from the players of the People's Postcode Lottery will continue to help Volunteering Matters tackle social isolation and loneliness in the UK.

Volunteering has the power to transform lives but it can have a serious image problem with many people believing it’s just not for them. On International Men’s Day we’d like to thank the thousands of men who volunteer and we challenge more to join them.

Margaret is a retired secondary school Head of Art, and has has been teaching an art class as part of LifeLines for local people over 50 for almost 5 years. She shared some of the work and explained the theme of the most recent project!

The UK’s national Volunteering Show has landed! Volunteering Matters is delighted to be involved in Volunteer Expo Live, a national event that seeks to connect volunteers, organisations and the charity sector together under one roof in order to help introduce more people to the world of volunteering. Volunteer Expo Live, which is being hosted by … Continued

At Volunteering Matters our strategy is all about being ‘place based’ and how that impacts communities. The volunteer leaders and organisers of RSVP (Retired Senior Volunteer Programme) have been leading the way and championing this approach for over 30 years! They do this by leading and organising local place-based social action in communities across the … Continued

We asked Natasha Craike, Project Co-ordinator of Grandmentors Surrey, to tell us about what it feels like to work at Volunteering Matters. Natasha told us about her experience of being a working mum at Volunteering Matters. As a mum to an 18 month old baby I didn’t think that I could go back to work … Continued

Gardening workbooks created for children by RSVP volunteers in lockdown

Rachel Evans reveals how community-based solutions to help isolated older people are being shared across the UK.

Could our innovative intergenerational mentoring programme for care leavers become a new national norm? Our Head of National Programmes Gethyn Williams and Will Bibby, Programme Manager at Nesta gave their take.

This Mother’s Day we celebrated a member of our own staff and her daughter – who together show how a passion for volunteering can clearly run in the family!

Our Chief Executive Oonagh Aitken is a keynote speaker at the Volunteer Management Conference 2018. In advance she was asked to consider the changing face of volunteering in later life.

Our Head of Communications Alison Harvie on how to get that New Year’s resolution off the page and into action.