BW concern at volunteer's complaint

THE article in narrowboatworld by the disgruntled Information Technology volunteer, entitled 'No compromise for volunteer' has prompted British Waterways to reply.

The article was by the volunteer who wanted to work in the IT department, but told us he was happy to spend some time doing some computer filing as a housekeeping exercise, but this was not enough for them. They wanted a consultancy exercise holding meetings, writing and submitting reports for ratification, etc.

But Ed Moss, British Waterways National Volunteering Manager tells us:

"I've spoken to the people who I think are likely to be involved and they don't know anything about it. Please can you pass on the following message to the anonymous prospective IT volunteer and post it as a response to the article."

I'm very sorry to hear that you've been put off volunteering with British Waterways by an over expectation of what you're offering. Whilst we do set out what we're trying to achieve with all our volunteering opportunities, we also aim to be as flexible as possible with them to match our aims with the offer of the volunteer.

Please drop me a line directly so that I can follow this up and find out where it's not worked here with a hope that we can find a way to making it work. If you chose to do this in confidence, I will treat it as such but am keen that we learn from any mistakes like this.

At least, British Waterways is attempting to sort out the problem.