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  Historic Houses Association and Black Environment Network event at Kelburn Castle.

  The Voluntary Arts Network (VAN) produces a series of very useful short briefing notes. These can be found listed under ‘VAN briefings’ in the publications section of their website . Topics include free and low cost IT tools, managing volunteers, health and safety, networking, funding and marketing amongst others.

• VolResource aims to make it quick and easy to get to useful information on anything to do with running a voluntary organisation (whether a community group, charity or other non-profit body). Their website has a lot of information as well as links to other sites.
• The Guardian’s Society pages contain up to the minutes news on many issues affecting the voluntary sector.
• The WCVA (Wales Council for Voluntary Action) has produced a series of guidance notes about volunteers and volunteering.
• Volunteering England has a series of free publications to download from its website. Topics include media, risk assessment, legal issues and good practice.
• Whilst it is encouraging to read about good practice regarding volunteering from socially excluded groups, it is not always so easy to put it into practice. The Goldstar toolkit section contains a collection of useful toolkits that can be downloaded and used as templates or frameworks to make specific good practices easier to carry out.
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  SPAB Education FiM Course, Aston. © Ralph Hodgson/SPAB

  Volunteer Genie offers information on how to use the power of the media to recruit new volunteers. It offers tips on putting together a recruitment campaign, writing press releases and planning events etc. To view this information click here.

• Volunteer Solutions offers professional, affordable training packs specifically written for the voluntary sector. These cover topics such as Motivating & Retaining Volunteers, Working Safely and Supporting & Supervising Volunteers.
• MLA London has put together a Volunteer Training Bank. Although this has been prepared with the needs of museum staff in mind there are useful resources for training relating to customer care and disability awareness etc.
• Voluntaryskills.com is a useful website for third sector skills and training in the North of England. There is a resources section with information on diversity, government and volunteering.

With thanks to Sarah Crofts, SPAB