Staff, trustees and volunteers are all delighted to receive the national Investing in Volunteers Award.

Jan Court, who managed the accreditation process for the Centre said "As we promote the importance of good volunteer management to other organisations, it is great to know that we do the job properly ourselves. Our volunteers are wonderful; they help us at the Roundhouse and we also have a team of volunteer drivers in Tring who take elderly and disabled people to appointments. They were interviewed by our Investing in Volunteers Assessor so they must have said nice things about the way we look after them!"

Investing in Volunteers is the UK quality standard for all organisations involving volunteers. It aims to improve the quality of the volunteering experience for all volunteers and for organisations to acknowledge the enormous contribution made by volunteers. Investing in Volunteers is managed by the UK Volunteering Forum and delivered by Volunteering England, Volunteer Development Scotland, Volunteer Development Agency in Northern Ireland and Wales Council for Voluntary Action.

Volunteer Centre Dacorum was assessed against a range of best practice standards and proved to excel in all aspects of working with its volunteers.

Investing in Volunteers is unique in that it is the only standard that focuses on volunteers. It is based on four areas of volunteer management; planning for volunteer involvement, recruiting volunteers, selecting and matching volunteers and supporting and retaining volunteers. Further information about the Standard can be found on www.investinginvolunteers.org.uk. The Standard will enhance volunteer management and is rigorous but designed to be simple to implement and not to generate large amounts of paperwork. It is the only quality standard that has independent external validation with a UK Quality Assurance Panel that makes recommendations to the UK Volunteering Forum, the awarding body.