You are here : Give it a Swirl 2009 Report
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Introduction
Give it a Swirl 2009 the national day of volunteering took place on the 25th of September. More than 4,000 opportunities were registered representing 170 practical hands on projects across 22 counties.
Public Profile
The national media profile of Give it a Swirl (improved considerably in 2009. National papers, TV and radio all carried articles and news items related to Give it a Swirl. Hume Brophy our PR team, generously decided to waive their fees, which allowed us to invest in more advertising further boosting our national profile.
Television
- Give it a Swirl was promoted on:
- The Afternoon Show
- RTE 6.01 News
- Primetime
Radio
Give it a Swirl was also profiled on National Radio and 13 local radio stations and included:
- Drivetime with Mary Wilson on RTE Radio 1
- Gerry Ryan on 2fm
Press
Both national and local press was very successful. National Press was significantly better that last year.
- The Give it a Swirl launch, volunteering and the day itself were highlighted by:
- The Irish Times (circulation: 118,259)
- The Sun (103,673),
- The Daily Star (109,413)
- The Daily Mirror (70,682)
- The Mail on Sunday, (12,358)
- The Sunday Independent (283,024)
- The Sunday World (292,124)
- Irish Examiner (54,191)
- The Sunday Business Post (55,971).
Circulation: Almost 200 articles with a circulation of 3,533,650
Marketing
Radio
The radio campaign for Give it a Swirl was two pronged.
24 x30 second ads featuring Miriam O’Callaghan were played on Today FM
The 2FM Roadcaster pitched itself outside Hueston Station on the afternoon of Give it a Swirl
- Reach: Today FM 363,000 listeners
- Reach: 2FM 346,000 listeners
Billboards
The billboards featured Miriam O’Callaghan and were displayed in nine prominent locations in Dublin:
- Talbot Street
- Fairview Strand c/o Phillipsburgh Ave
- Ranelagh Road/Mount Pleasant(
- South Circular Road Dublin 12
- Clogher Road at the Sports Grounds
- Belgard Road Tallaght
- Loughlinstown at the Roundabout
- Dublin Street Swords Facing Drogheda
- Cloghran Airport Rd
Posters and Flyers
20,000 A4 A2 and DL flyers were distributed among Volunteer Centres for circulation, while a further 10,000 flyers were distributed in Heuston and Connolly Stations.
Coupons
Volunteer Centres Ireland opted for the first time to advertise on the back of shopping receipts. As well as reaching the general public, the Afternoon Show first approached VCI on foot of having coming across a Tesco receipt.
Reach: 2,418,500 coupons were distributed nationwide in Tesco and Super Value Stores.
Activelink
As with last year, Give it a Swirl sponsored the activelink website for the three months running up to Give it a Swirl. A Give it a Swirl banner headed each of the listings under volunteering, employment opportunities, news/events and training/workshops.
Outreach
Volunteer Centres Ireland availed of a number of outreach opportunities throughout the year in order to promote Give it s Swirl – these included the Young Social Innovators Exhibition and the Grad Ireland Fair.
Patrons
Pat Shortt
Pat Shortt a universally loved comic actor agreed to launch of Give it a Swirl. Ianrnod Eireann generously allowed the launch to take place at their Inchicore works with one of their steam engines. This was a great setting for a launch with Pat Shortt and seamlessly associated us with our main sponsor Ianrnod Eireann.
Miriam O’Callaghan
2008 Patron Miriam O’Callaghan once more showed her support for Give it a Swirl by allowing us to use her image in a billboard campaign and she also recorded two radio ads that were played intensely on the run up to Give it a Swirl during prime time on Today FM.
Sponsors
Volunteer Centres Ireland first developed a relationship with Iarnrod Eireann in 2008 when they sponsored the printing of 10,000 DL flyers and allowed volunteers to distribute the flyers at Heuston and Connolly stations.
This year Iarnrod Eireann agreed to become main sponsors of Give it a Swirl in return for €15,000. Their support however went further then that. The Communications Team in Iarnrod Eireann were on hand to offer advice and share good ideas, they provided the site for the launch, entertained the local children with a clown, printed their own posters from a separate budget and donated their advertising space to the Give it a Swirl Campaign.
Website
Our new Website was launched in the summer of 2009 in time for Give it A Swirl. The homepage highlighted the Give it A Swirl section and volunteers and organisations were invited to find out more. Toolkits, Frequently Asked Questions and information about previous Give it a Swirl projects was available to view. A radio ad featuring the song ‘What a Difference a Day Makes’ played while people browsed the Give it a Swirl website.
Database
In June 2009 we were granted an independent Salesforce. This allows organisations to register Give it a Swirl projects online and for potential volunteers to apply. Once the desired number of volunteers registers, the opportunities are still displayed online but volunteers can no longer apply.
Give it a Swirl Team
The Give it a Swirl working group consisted primarily of the Give it a Swirl Coordinator Eva Early, The CEO Yvonne McKenna and a Give it a Swirl intern Deirdre Maher. Further support came from VCI Project Manager Fiona Sexton and the team from Hume Brophy as well as Rita Butterly from Iarnrod Eireann.
Types of Projects
Give it a Swirl is open to everyone and aims to show individuals that in a few short hours they can make a huge difference. One of the strengths of Give it a Swirl is its diversity and the way it can turn around some of the stereotypes associated with volunteering. The breadth of projects and interests available can be very inspirational to people new to volunteering and shows that there is really something to suit everybody. People who are commonly considered service users become service deliverers proving that everybody has something to offer. In 2009 volunteers were made up of young people, older people, immigrants, asylum seekers and people with intellectual and physical disabilities.
Here are some of the projects that took place in 2009:
- In county Clare, in cooperation with Age Action Ireland groups of volunteers opened ‘phone booths’ in public places with the aim of showing older people how to use their mobile phones and programmed their phones with ‘In Case of Emergencies” numbers.
- In Milltown county Cork, the Milltown Tidy Towns Society teamed with some asylum seekers to give the town a spring clean.
- In Co. Kildare teams of adults with intellectual disabilities from St John of Gods coordinated an assembly line of hampers for a local charity.
- Volunteers for Meals on Wheels in County Carlow sat down to create 70 handmade birthday cards for their clients.
- In Drimnagh, Dublin university students, local residents, corporate employees and local children came together to restore an abandoned community building.
- Children from St Tieranas Playschool Crossmolina County Mayo took part in “Reduce, Reuse and Recycle” an initiative to teach very young children about the benefits of recycling
- School children in County Meath took part in a social history project. Each team of two students met with two members of the local Active Retirement Club and interviewed them about local history and their lives in order to record their memories.
- Staff from Diagio took part in an environmental project on Howth Head removing overgrown Rhodedendron and Birch to make the heath more accessible to wildlife.
Acknowledgments
Volunteer Centres Ireland would like to thank everyone who has helped to make Give it a Swirl 2009 the most sucessful national day of volunteering.
We particularly would like to acknowledge the generous sponsorship of Iarnrod Eireann and the support and assistance provided by Rita Butterly and Barry Kenny.
We are also very grateful to Hume Brophy Associates and their team who provided their expertise pro bono and raised the national profile of Give it a Swirl and Volunteer Centres Ireland.
We would also like to thank the JC Decaux for the free advertsing space and 2FM and Today FM for their very generous rates.
A special mention though for Deirdre Maher, our Give it Swirl intern, whose hard work and cheerful demeanour lifted the spirits of everyone here in VCI and ensured that everything ran smoothly.
Finally, thank you to all the volunteers and organisations who took part and inspired the rest of us by showing that in a few short hours, volunteering can make a huge difference.
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