Volunteering is the lifeblood of our community

I visited the Border Union Show in Kelso and met many volunteer groups with Christine Grahame, our long standing SNP MSP for Midlothian South, Tweeddale and Lauderdale. Christine knows many of these groups and it was great to see the banter she had and to meet many of the volunteers myself - some of whom you'll see in my video from the day.

In the Scottish Borders the numbers doing formal volunteering vastly exceeds the national average - but less so in Midlothian.

In general formal volunteering is much more common in rural areas - the more remote, the higher the level of volunteering. And I guess this is to be expected - its hard to deliver the full range of community services in these harder to get to places. But this is why its particularly important to support volunteer organisations in rural areas.

If you compare the type of organisation people volunteer for in general, and again in Scottish Borders vs Midlothian, the differences are quite striking.

Are these differences to do with the nature of the different organisations operating in these different areas - or as a result of different community needs? Or is this more to do with how their councils provide support to voluntary organisations or choose to deliver services themselves? Either way, these differences demand further attention. And that's the particular role an MSP should play - acting as a local champion, but with a national voice.