Response from MIND on volunteering

I wrote this post the other day regarding MIND and volunteering and I got a response from MIND, here it is.

Dear Louise,

Many thanks for getting in touch concerning the volunteer position within the membership team.

The volunteer position had been specifically designed to provide the opportunity for someone who may not currently be working to gain the confidence and skills that may help with their return to work, while in a safe and supportive environment.

Whilst we use the language found within the workplace, such as job description and personal specification, the tasks to be undertaken do not constitute a job available within the team. The tasks undertaken will be based on the individual’s current skills and the type of experience they wish to gain during the six-month period to enhance their potential progress back into a paid position. Whilst these tasks may support some aspects of the membership team’s activity, they will not involve or affect the delivery of our day-to-day work.

We have had overwhelming support for the position and we continue to strive to get the balance between offering paid and voluntary work so that people can choose what best suits their needs. With your permission, I would like to pass on your views on volunteering being exploitative to our HR team – I think it is important that all views on the impact of voluntary opportunities be considered.   

I look forward to hearing from you.

Kind regards

Suzanne

Suzanne Page

Membership Manager 

The job description refers to “responsibilities” and volunteer responsible to a membership officer. The placement, according to MIND, doesn’t constitute a job available within the team. But if it sounds like a specific role in a specific department then it’s a job without pay.

However, MIND, stresses (a bit of back peddling here, methinks) in a rather mealy-mouthed manner that, the tasks undertaken will be based on the individual’s current skills and the type of experience they wish to gain during the six-month period to enhance their potential progress back into a paid position. Whilst these tasks may support some aspects of the membership team’s activity, they will not involve or affect the delivery of our day-to-day work.

Interestingly, that isn’t mentioned in the job description and person spec. Also what is meant by “overwhelming support for the position”? Does that mean applications? Support from MIND overall?

The reply is interesting as, like I said back peddling, it puts MIND on the defensive and with the attacks on the economy, jobs, pay and conditions we need to make organisations accountable because if we don’t then they will slip without hesitation into unpaid labour.

Ken Russell and The Devils

So I will bid adieu to that over-the-top hyperbolic baroque style director, Ken Russell. It was only a couple of weeks ago there was a programme about the British Board of Film Classification where letters between the head of the BBFC, John Trevelyan, and Russell over the controversial film, The Devils (1971). It was a fascinating, the censor telling the director to make cuts and certainly the infamous orgy scene along with the ‘rape’ of Christ (see this excellent article by Mark Kermode). The censors didn’t get or maybe they did, and by all accounts Trevelyan was worried about the American financiers. I re-read Huxley’s The Devils and viewed the film again. It is a very powerful and political film. The main issues being of religious bureaucracies, sexual repression, oppression, political subterfuge, witch hunts, persecution and execution..all added to a potent celluloid mix. No wonder the moralists hated it. Also, what also increased the power of this film was its minimalist set created by Derek Jarman. The film, The Devils, deserves its own post, which I will write at some point.

Russell, no stranger to controversy, directed Women in Love (the infamous wrestling scene between Alan Bates and Oliver Reed). The rock opera, Tommy, which too was over-the-top but better for it. There was The Music Lovers, The Boy Friend, Lisztomania, Altered States, Gothic and Lair of the White Worm. I saw the prequel to Women in Love, The Rainbow, in the cinema circa 1989 and was highly disappointed by it. It just had none of the originality and passion of the sequel.

I believe that Russell was underrated. Censor and critiques couldn’t see beyond the “indecency”. The director Alex Cox and film critic Mark Kermode argue The Devils  is one of the ten greatest achievements of cinema history. I think they are right.