VPRS 16874 Records of the Royal Children's Hospital Volunteer Service

This series is a collection of records from the Royal Children's Hospital (RCH) Volunteer Service Department. The Volunteer Service began in June 1961 and is still operating at time of writing, June 2013.The first two items in this series are bound volumes containing newsletters, minutes and annual reports arranged chronologically. The first newsletter was produced in March 1962. Three newsletters were produced that year, but from 1963 they were produced annually. The newsletters were mostly comprised of reports written by the volunteers from within each department of the hospital. The newsletters also included the annual reports and the minutes of the annual meetings of the Volunteer Service. From 1968 the newsletters were renamed annual reports, but the content did not change significantly.This series only contains annual reports to 1977. The service continued, however, to produce annual reports to 2001. Later reports are still in custody of the RCH Archives (as at time of writing, June 2013).Other items in the series include notebooks containing lists of committee members and long service award recipients. There is also a collection of loose correspondence, reports and information for volunteers.Minute books can be found in VPRS 16872 Royal Children's Hospital Volunteer Service Minute Books.The volunteer movement began in July 1961 following a study of the operation of volunteer services in American hospitals. It commenced with 126 volunteers who worked part-time and were unpaid. Volunteers performed numerous tasks ranging from counting and packing pills in the Hospital's dispensary to providing interpreting services.Prior to transfer to Public Record Office Victoria, the records in this series were maintained as part of the Royal Children's Hospital (RCH) Archives. They were part of RCH accession number 2008/0007. Note that this accession also included a box of photographs but these remain with the RCH Archive.