For immediate release
Mike Locke has been appointed to the newly created role of Director of Public Affairs at Volunteering England (VE), the national development agency for volunteering.
For the past few months, he has combined the role of Reader in the School of Social Sciences, Media and Cultural Studies at the University of East London with that of Assistant Director of the Institute for Volunteering Research, and he was previously Director of the Centre for Institutional Studies at UEL. Ten years ago, he helped create the Institute for Volunteering research (IVR) with current VE Chief Executive Justin Davis Smith, through the association of Volunteering England and the University of East London.
Mike’s experience of voluntary organisations and voluntary action dates back to the early 1970s through involvement in community organisations in the North Kensington/Notting Hill area of London, and he has worked as a researcher and teacher with voluntary and community sector issues since the early 1980s.
With the Institute for Volunteering Research, he has been involved a variety of studies, including evaluation of government policies and organisational programmes for volunteering, exploratory studies in faith-based voluntary action and community involvement and the management capacities of volunteer involving organisations.
Mike was also a founder member of the Advisory Group initiating and developing strategy for volunteering for the 2012 Olympics and Paralympics.
Commenting on his appointment, Mike said:
“The new Directorate of Public Affairs brings together Volunteering England’s teams for communications, policy, information and research. This gives us the organisational structure to get stronger dialogues going between policy-makers in central and local government and our members and the volunteering movement as a whole.
“We see Volunteering England as the voice of volunteering. So, we need to have good practical and research-based knowledge for what we say and we need to develop the best ways to say it. For me personally, it’s a terrific opportunity to build on my experience in research, journalism and volunteering and I’m very much looking forward to the challenge.”
Notes to editors
- For more information or interviews please contact Cat Dean on 020 7520 8932 or email cat.dean@volunteeringengland.org.
- Volunteering England aims to improve the quality, quantity, impact and accessibility of volunteering throughout England. For more information please visit www.volunteering.org.uk
