VAP News > News archive > 7th May 2019: The social side of VAP
This year’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) was a great success – it combined an official update on what VAP has been up to in the last year, and was also a fun social occasion for volunteers, committee members and staff to get together and share experiences and ideas. And there’s more to come because we are about to increase our social events programme for members!
One part of the AGM that was particularly popular this year was the screening of part of a film by Chloe Ruthven, along with a chance to discuss its themes with the director herself. The film, “The Do-Gooders”, is a documentary that questions the role of aid workers and volunteers in Palestine, and as a result it provided food for an interesting debate on precisely the kind of international development work that VAP is involved in. We found that this was an exciting way to keep things varied at the AGM – along with presentations on past projects abroad and an overview of how the year has been for VAP in terms of international volunteering, UK workcamps, finances and plans for the future.
It was also a super opportunity to meet up with other volunteers and hear about each other’s experiences, and it made us realise that this is a side of VAP that we want to expand further. The thing about VAP is that it can often work out that you are placed on a project abroad, have a great time, come home and then don’t get to speak to any other members about your experiences and get new ideas from theirs. This event showed how much fun and how useful it can be to get together and report back in an informal, social setting – we had returning volunteers from places as varied as Palestine, Sweden, and Italy this time.
So if you missed out this time, do not despair! We will be holding two more social events in the near future, timed to coincide with our committee meetings just in case you decided you want to get involved in those as well. Save the dates now: Friday 23 January 2015 and Friday 8 May 2015. The events will be held in the cool new setting of The Gallery in central London (http://alanbaxter.co.uk/about/gallery-events.php) – everyone who came this year agreed it was a very impressive venue! Again, we will have a film or presentation for discussion, followed by informal chat and whatever else people want to do!
See you there : )
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