November was a month of highlights for me, with a number of key events in the volunteering space.
We held our Volunteer Awards Night on the 13th November at the Anglers Tavern. It was wonderful to host our volunteer community, along with their loved ones, at a dinner to acknowledge this year’s progress and to celebrate the amazing contribution and achievements of all our volunteers.
This year we introduced two new service awards – a pin to recognise 12-month commitment and a medallion to acknowledge 3 years of volunteer service. We also introduced two new awards – the Alison Black Spirit Fire Award went to Lorraine & Doug Ashton in recognition of the spirit of joy they bring to the community in their volunteer roles. We were also inspired by Rosanne’s success at the Westfield Local Hero Awards, to introduce our own LINK Community Local Hero Award, and it was only fitting that the first recipient was Rosanne Pirrottina.
We also gifted all our volunteers a LINK-branded lunch cooler bag. If you haven’t yet received yours, please see me in the new year (I still have more to deliver).
Rosanne’s achievements were also acknowledged on 27th November at a ceremony for the Volunteering Victoria Awards. Nominations for these Awards are highly competitive so it is a huge honour that Rosanne was a finalist in the Volunteer Commitment category.
We had our bi-annual LINK Volunteer, User and Community Engagement Subcommittee Meeting on 18th November. With this meeting the chair role passed from board member Sara Pantaleo to new director Chris Lowe, who we look forward to working with in 2026. The meeting is an opportunity to review the progress of our volunteer program and, with the shared experience of the committee members, to explore ways to continuously grow and improve on our successes, as well as new strategies to address gaps.
A big thank you to Brett Norman, who was our volunteer representative to the committee in 2025. We are pleased to welcome Mel Boak to the role in 2026.
Last, but not least, for November activities, we received our new uniform order, and have now handed out the new long-sleeve polos to our drivers and outing hosts. We also have new eye-catching pink hi-vis vests that have been distributed to our outing hosts. We will be placing one in each of the vehicles in the new year, so that our volunteer drivers will always have one to hand for situations where visibility is important for safety, or to stand out from the crowd for our clients.
We held our final volunteer social for the year on Wednesday this week. Given that throughout the year we usually run these out of Thomastown, on this occasion we held a lunch get-together in Hoppers Crossing for our outing hosts and volunteers located in the west. We’ll be restarting our monthly socials in February and taking advantage of the (hopefully) sunny weather to once again host a BBQ in February and March. Stay tuned for details.
I hope you all have a chance to take a break with family and friends and return reenergised and refreshed for a new year of volunteering with LINK.
I will be off for two weeks and back in the office on the 5th January. I’m looking forward to continuing to grow our volunteer community and to ensuring that your volunteering experience with LINK is a positive and rewarding one.
Have a wonderful holiday season and I’ll see you in the new year!
