A Mouthful of Volunteer Management!

Well I joined AAMov recently. Now there’s a mouthful. Every time I say AAMov people say Goodbye. I think that they think I am saying “I’m off”. For those of you outside Australia AAMov is the Australasian Association of Managers of Volunteers. It’s a good thing they use only one letter O in the abbreviation and not both. AAOMOV sounds even a bit more tricky. People might say “Bless you” after you utter the word.

I explained the above for those of you outside Australia and New Zealand. However at a recent network of volunteer managers and coordinators or coordinators and managers of volunteers which ever title takes your fancy, few had heard of AAMov which doesn't surprise me given the recent change. So I did my first good act for AAMov and explained to everyone that the Australasian Association of Managers of Volunteers or AAMov was once known as the Australasian Association of Volunteer Administrators or AAVA. Some people then went “Ah, AAVA” !

Tricky business this abbreviation thing. I remember in Ireland when they introduced a new Train system in Dublin they called it the D.A.R.T. It stands for Dublin Area Rapid Transport. Cork gave some thought to calling theirs CART.  A town called Fermoy however drew a line in the sand on that one.

In the UK they have the simple AVM which is the Association of Volunteer Managers. The “Manager of Volunteers” philosophy espoused by some hasn’t quite reached the northern hemisphere yet! If it does I suggest they go with MOVA so not to confuse themselves with AAMov.

It’s a tricky one and I can’t see any way around the mouthfuls really. So I will just continue to inform people I come across in the sector about these groups. It’s the work that we do that is more important than words after all.

For those of you interested in Joining AAMoV  - http://www.aava.asn.au/

And AVM - http://www.volunteermanagers.org.uk/