Every year people all over the world set them selves new year’s resolutions. Many of which do not get fulfilled, in fact, 66% of resolutions don’t even last a month. What can you do that really makes a difference?
Volunteering is something that you can do all year round. This is a resolution that not only helps yourself but others as well.
DO – HELP SOMEONE ELSE
“We can’t help everyone but everyone can help someone”.
Former US President Ronald Reagan may not be everyone’s cup of tea but he certainly got this one right. Why not make your changes for 2019 ones that can help others. There are plenty of opportunities to volunteer all over the UK and worldwide, this year your help really could change a life. TeamKinetic is lucky enough to work with organisations who offer these amazing opportunities and we’d love to help you get started.
DON’T – BE A HASHTAG HALFWIT
Social media gives us an audience never before imagined in human history. It’s so easy to get caught up in what’s trending and follow the crowd. The cringy popular ones every year are ‘#NewYearNewMe’ and ‘#WatchOut2019’. As we’ve seen, less than half of new years resolutions stick, so now we are in February, revisit your new year’s hopes and aspirations. It is great to let people know what you’re planning on doing over the of course of the year. Just do not let it become embarrassing when come the end of the year you have not acted on your goals. Hashtags are easy, real change needs a little more effort!
DO – USE VOLUNTEERING TO YOUR ADVANTAGE
Helping out can make you so much more employable. Volunteering does not have to be at a charity or something ‘uncool’. There will likely be opportunities for you to get a voluntary role in your future profession. This will help you stand out from the crowd as people will see you have a genuine passion for your career. Almost every University will have a department that will be able to help, or your town will have a volunteer centre that will have be able to signpost you with volunteering opportunities. These life experiences can be worth it’s weight in gold in the long term.
DON’T – GIVE UP!
February is coming to an end and I’m sure that many of you have already given up, with most challenging tasks the easiest thing to do is to jack it in!
This is our biggest DON’T. It’s ok to give up, but don’t give up on trying again, you only need to succeed once to make that difference. If you don’t give up on your volunteering resolution, you will be making a difference to someone else and yourself. Volunteering can genuinely change lives – both yours and those your work supports.
Last year TeamKinetic joined Liverpool Football club to help with a disability football session. We got the chance to speak to volunteers first hand and see what volunteering meant to them and hopefully you can see the difference being involved with something you are passionate about can make to your life and others. Check out how Liverpool FC use TeamKinetic here.
TeamKinetic provides volunteer management software that can work for every organisation. We work with groups of all sizes who have had success with us in recruiting, retaining and realising the potential of their volunteer workforce.
Please visit our website to find out more about our work and how we can help you. Feel free to request a demo so we can show you around and tell you about how we can help you specifically. Alternatively, you can give us a call on 0161 914 5757.
We achieved a very reasonable 65% response rate, so thank you to everyone who took the time to complete our satisfaction survey last November, it is very much appreciated. Without your feedback we are unable to gauge our progress in making your TeamKinetic experience even better.
The take home message for us was that we need to do better in informing and providing help and context for new features as they become available.
TeamKinetic has been growing quickly over the last 18 months and we have definitely fallen behind in our goals to write tutorial and guide content for all the new stuff that has been going on in that 18 months. We now have renewed focus on this issue and will have some news soon about how we plan to present contextual information and help within TeamKinetic. We are also ramping up our online master classes and live sessions, so join our Facebook group to get early access to those resources.
We asked five questions concerning some of the most useful functions and terminology that we suspected were being under used or misunderstood;
I am aware of sharing opportunities outside of my website
I am aware that you can add volunteers to existing opportunities
I am aware that i can limit opportunities to groups and linked volunteers
I am aware of activity tags and how they are used in search
I am aware of flexible, repeating, non-repeating opportunities
I am aware of sharing opportunities outside of my website
Some 57% of respondents were not aware that there is potential to share opportunities outside of their application in order to extend the reach of their opportunities and gain more volunteer interest.
We can share your opportunities to Do-It, the largest volunteer opportunity signposting app in the UK, our own, more modest, national TryVolunteering site and via the API to SalesForce or other external systems such as Volunteer Scotland and Volunteer-wales.net.
This is a great feature that is clearly not being utilised enough. We will be dedicating one of our masterclasses and video tutorials to this topic soon.
I am aware that you can add volunteers to existing opportunities
Nearly 50% of respondents were not aware that administrators and providers can add volunteers directly to sessions, and the volunteer will receive an email notification so they can check their availability.
TeamKinetic is a self service application for volunteers, we do not demand that administrators and providers micro manage all aspects of the recruitment process. This saves valuable time for the managers and allows the volunteers to pick and choose the sessions that suit them without the sometimes long exchanges between managers and volunteers as they try to allocate volunteers to sessions.
However we fully understand that it maybe necessary to manage a particular opportunity that carefully and you want full control, or partial control over what volunteers join what sessions.
This is a useful and important set of features and we will definitely be adding some tutorials about this to the help guide and the masterclass sessions.
I am aware that I can limit opportunities to groups and linked volunteers
A third of our respondents did not know about the various restrictions you can place on opportunities, either when creating the opportunities or editing them at a later date.
Volunteer grouping is a very powerful feature that allows you to segment your volunteers. Groups are fully customisable and providers can have separate groups to administrators. Volunteers can be members of no, one or multiple groups and can be moved around at anytime.
As well as being able to restrict opportunities you can message particular groups, quickly update volunteer information and statuses for group members and create registration links so that people are automatically placed in the correct group when registering without any admin input required.
I am aware of activity tags and how they are used in search
We had a pretty even 50/50 split about this question. Its a little esoteric but important even so.
Most importantly tags are used during search as a way for volunteers to narrow down their search. Any text entered in a search is compared to tags and all opportunity tags for the matching opportunities are offered to the volunteer as filters so they can further refine their search.
Its super important to understand how they are used so you can get the best out of tag based searching so please take a look at our video tutorial on tags and super charge your opportunity tags.
I am aware of flexible, repeating, non-repeating opportunities
At TeamKinetic we discuss, alot, about what we should call these opportunity types and how they should be presented when creating opportunities. I’ll let you into a little secret, there is NO difference between repeating and non-repeating opportunities, you just get a different layout when adding your sessions.
The difference between flexible opportunities and the others is important and does have ramifications for the joining and logging process.
Fortunately we had a very positive 75% of respondents who were aware of the three types (unfortunately we didn’t think to add a follow up question asking if they were also aware of the reasons for choosing different types).
We are still discussing how we can adapt the opportunity creation page to make it clearer why you would choose one over the other and once we have that dialled in we will release a video explaining it all.
Every Christmas it is easy to get wrapped up in the commercial side of things. Presents, parties and Xmas markets, etc. It is really a time for giving. A time where we should be thinking about the people who are less fortunate than us and how we can help them.
Every year lots of fantastic work is done up and down the country to help people in need. The amount of work that is done and the opportunities available rises during the festive period and this year is no different, which is great to see. Manchester in particular has some great ways of making sure people are helped this Christmas.
MANCHESTER
Since 2015, official Christmas carols have been a tradition at the Manchester Cathedral to raise money for the Royal Children’s Hospital. They do fantastic work all year round and funding is vital to allow them to keep doing this.
Tickets are now on sale for the Christmas Carols in the City concert. It’s a chance to experience an authentic festive choir, and part of the ticket fee goes to those who need it most. It takes place on Thursday 20th December and festive refreshments will be available. Tickets are £6 for children and concessions, £12 for adults.
The capital is also well known for the charitable work over the winter months. There are many elderly people who spend Christmas alone every year. The Rotary Club holds a Christmas day party, for over-65s living in Wandsworth. The wild shindig takes place in Battersea Park. Last year, 450 elderly people who otherwise would have been alone went along.
Volunteers are needed for Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day, and applications for 2018 are now open. You can do just one, two, or all three days. Jobs include preparing the venue, helping with transport for the guests, serving food, and clearing up afterwards.
As you can imagine London is packed with great volunteering opportunities. Our friends at Team London are the ultimate search tool for volunteering opportunities, ideal when Google lets you down. Type the keyword ‘Christmas’ into the search engine, if you need your volunteering to be festive.
If you are on the search for a reliable trustworthy volunteer management software, look no further than TeamKinetic. We offer a service suitable for any sized company, we can tailor your system to you. To find out more, give us a call on 0161 914 5757 or or send us an email at info@teamkinetic.co.uk.
Over the last decade, we have worked with many organisations, helping them improve their volunteer management. We have found some common problems in volunteer management.
As you know being a volunteer manager can often be a lonely job. TeamKinetic feels that it is important to get volunteer managers talking, sharing good practice and working together, this is important for the growth of the third sector and volunteering as a whole.
Recruitment Issues
Recruiting enough volunteers is one of the most common problems we hear. Our software looks to help resolve this common volunteer management issue. Although this may seem a monumental task to find the help you need, sometimes it can be simpler than you think.
Here are a few of our suggestions:
The rise of social media is a wonderful thing for the voluntary sector. Social media being free is a blessing for many industries and the voluntary sector is no different. Over one billion people are on Facebook and Twitter meaning there is an audience out there, you just have to appeal directly to them. There are many pages offering tips on how to use social media properly – cracking this medium may be the way to grow your volunteer base.
Do you know your volunteers, do you know what social media, if any they use? Do you have the IT skills to communicate with your volunteers through the most appropriate channels?
Modern marketing isn’t the only way to attract new volunteers, more traditional means of communication should never be ignored. How do you engage with older volunteers, who are not on social media? How can you start a word-of-mouth campaign to build your support. Ideas like refer a friend or linking to existing groups such as rotary or taverners work well. People tend to respond positively to a review from people they know and trust.
Don’t ever discount the power of good posters or interesting newsletters.
Keeping Volunteers Interested
Retaining a volunteer is much cheaper than recruiting a new volunteer! Improving your retention should be a priority for anyone working in volunteer management.
How do you keep your volunteers for longer?
Theories of behaviour change suggest that for people to make a significant and sustainable change to their behaviour, their motivation must be significant or that change of behaviour will not be long-lasting. If you want to help motivate a volunteer to stay involved, you must call to their primal instincts.
What you are doing as a volunteer makes a difference! We could not do this without you. We need you!
It’s just good manners to say thank you to the people who help you. Say thank you right and that person will come back time and again.
Recognition is tricky, as no one volunteer is the same and some people feel uncomfortable being made a fuss of. However, it is important that you recognise people’s efforts. Be it a Christmas party, a summer dance or a cup of tea with the team, getting your volunteers together to say thank you properly and to tell them how important they are, how indispensable they are and what a difference they make. Appreciate your volunteers and remember to show and share that appreciation.
Timing Opportunities
Knowing your volunteers and understanding them is vital in volunteer management. For you to cater to the needs of your volunteers do you understand the demographics, motivations and barriers to participation? Examples of this might be, are you volunteers 18-24, are they students, unemployed, have children, are they likely to be in work during the day? How do I optimise my session times, recruitment and opportunity description to appeal to my target audience, do I know what motivates them and what prevents them from doing more?
Do I have the data to find out what time is best for my volunteers? Do I have the tool available to learn through insight?
Volunteers appreciate you fitting opportunities around them. To offer them what they want, when they want to do it. Boosting volunteer enthusiasm, because they know you’re taking their personal situation into account.
TeamKinetic – The Solution!!
Of course, we think a great way to solve many of these issues and more besides effective volunteer management is software. What’s even more obvious to us is the volunteer management software that you should use should be built using open data principles, work on every device and be super easy to use.
TeamKinetic’s volunteer management software has a system that can suit everyone no matter how large or small. We would be more than happy to have a chat with you regarding your particular volunteer management needs. We work across the sector with Universities, National Sporting Governing Bodies, volunteer centres, charities, major events, hospices, hospitals, museums, parks, community groups and Sports Clubs.
If you think that your organisation could benefit from having more time to help more people, please feel free to get in touch.
You can find TeamKinetic on social media and listen to our podcast:
Mental health is a growing problem, approximately 1 in 4 people in the UK will experience a mental health problem each year, as reported by Mind. Women are most likely to suffer from a mental health issue but males are more likely to take their own lives, at 78% of all suicides. While it can’t be the answer to everything, it has been said that volunteering improves mental health.
Causes Of Poor Mental Health
Many believe that the NHS is underfunded for the treatment of mental health. The King’s Fund reports that 23% of NHS activity is dedicated to treating mental health whilst only 11% of the budget is allocated to the issue.
Demand for help is up, but services are diminishing as a result of austerity. Recent figures show a 30% fall since 2009 in the number of hospital beds for people with acute mental health conditions. This follows the revelation in November 2017 that two-thirds of children referred for specialist mental healthcare are not receiving treatment. The charity Barnardo’s warned that ministers were “sleepwalking” into a deeper crisis in children’s mental health, after the government’s response to a parliamentary select committee report and green paper failed to promise urgent action to plug “gaping holes” in services.
It’s believed that social media plays a massive role in poor mental health. A study of 1,000 young people in the USA found 41% of respondents stated that social media platforms make them feel anxious, sad or depressed. The suggestion is social media makes young people feel anxious. Ben Jacobs, a DJ who has more than 5,000 followers on Twitter, decided to go on a hiatus from the platform in January 2016 and has found the break really beneficial. “Twitter did indeed make me feel anxious from time to time as it slowly dawned on me I was concerning myself with the feelings of the thousands of strangers I followed, while they didn’t necessarily know who I was.”
Volunteering And Mental Health
Studies show that volunteering improves mental health. It allows you to get rid of negative feelings and emotions such as anger, aggression or hostility that have a bad impact on our mind and body. Engaging in random acts of kindness can help decrease these feelings and stabilise your overall health. 94% of people who have volunteered in the last twelve months say that it improves their mood. Statistics such as this suggest that volunteering can improve poor mental health.
Volunteering also improves self-esteem. As the statistic above proves, voluntary work can improve your overall well-being. It makes you feel better about yourself. Research shows that knowing you’re making a difference to someone else makes you more confident and content.
Another reason to volunteer is the amount of life satisfaction that it can bring you. NCVO say that volunteering can boost happiness, therefore reducing symptoms of depression and other mental health issues.
TeamKinetic – Proud Of Our Friends
We make volunteering easier for organisations that help others. They help to recover, improve and prevent poor mental health. In September 2018, members of TeamKinetic went down to the Liverpool FC Foundation. We spoke to a number of volunteers on the ‘Respect For All’ activity day. They all gave great praise for the work the foundation does. Many felt the foundation had a positive impact on them. One person even said ”The foundation means everything to me.”
We also work with several hospitals, such as Warrington Halton Hospital, and many NHS Trusts. They do remarkable work every day to contribute to the positive well-being of others. TeamKinetic are very proud to be associated with these organisations and show full gratitude for the work they do.
For those interested in a volunteer management software that can help you the same way we have helped many others, please visit our website to book a demo and we would be happy to talk with you further.
You can find TeamKinetic on social media and listen to our podcast:
Want to be happier, feel more fulfilled and live in a nicer world? Here is why you should volunteer.
1. Volunteering is a great career booster
Volunteering is a great CV booster that can set you apart from the rest. If you and another candidate look the same on paper what will you have to differentiate yourself?
Volunteering is a surefire way to get you ahead of the competition and secure your next career move. Lots of companies allow employees to take volunteering days.
Career-boosting volunteers used their experience as a great way to network and meet influential people. Want to work in event management? Volunteer in events. Want to work in Football? Volunteer at a local club. Simple!
There are many reasons why people all over the world volunteer. Often its because they have been directly affected by a cause or issue. People want to give back to the organisation or cause that helped them in a proactive way, people like to feel that they can make a difference.
Working to make a difference about things you care about will make you feel better!
3. Personal improvement
Get out of your comfort zone and volunteer. If you have never done it before getting started can be tough! But it is sure to develop you as a person. Volunteers often report higher levels of confidence and self-esteem.
The skills you gain from volunteering can help you improve your everyday life. Volunteering in itself can make you feel both humble and good about yourself.
Who wouldn’t want that?!
4. Health benefits
Research reports that volunteering can actually make you a healthier and happier person. For instance,
94% of volunteers say that after 12 months of volunteering, they feel physically more healthy and their mood has improved.
96% of people who have been volunteering for at least a year say that volunteering has given them a purpose in life.
Want to read more about the health benefits volunteer offers here.
5. It’s Fun!!
like most scenarios in life, volunteering will be what you make it and if you want it to be fun it will be fun!
Volunteering is a great way of establishing relationships and making a whole new set of friends. It gets you out and is a fantastic cure for loneliness.
Doing something you enjoy, with people who can become your friends, whilst potentially helping others. It’s a win-win.
This December, TeamKinetic has an early Christmas present for our customers. We will be releasing one of our largest ever update with some significant improvements and extra functionality across the board. Below are the biggest changes.
Session Names
Use of “Google places” to search and create opportunity locations
Complete re-write of the opportunity apply process
Custom Open-badge awards
Lots more customisation options
Our POD system for enterprise clients
Day schedule report available for everyone
Invite new volunteers via email (for providers and admins)
New search and download options for criminal checks
All transaction emails sent via Mandrill for improved deliverability
As well as the raft of 150 or so bug fixes, minor improvements and speed gains.
We will be sending a notification to all our customers pointing you to this blog and also to encourage you to login to the beta site (using your normal login details) and give some feedback on the new features.
Your feedback is essential. We take your feedback seriously and it helps us understand your needs and issues. You also help us spot potential bugs and operational considerations that we may not have considered for this update. We take every care to test the application before we update the code but we don’t always have a test that fully represents your exact usage, so we ask you to login to the beta site and try it out for yourself.
If you do find any issues or would like to raise some concerns, you can send feedback using any of the following ways.
Complete a support ticket in the HELP menu.
Send us an email and put in the subject line “BETA SITE”
Call us here at the office on 0161 914 5757 and press option 1 and talk to Support Team.
If you have not done it yet, join our Facebook ADMIN group and send us a message.
Send us a Tweet telling us what you think of the new features.
Named Sessions
When creating or editing opportunities you are now able to name sessions. This is great if you have an opportunity that might have sessions on at the same time, say water stations along a marathon route. Using this new feature you could have 5 sessions within the one opportunity, all at the same time but identify them as, Station 1 – at 5Km, Station 2 – at 15 Km and so on.
New and Improved Search
Many of you will have already tried out the new search at various points along its beta testing. We have been able to incorporate much of your suggestions and it should now be much easier for volunteers to find opportunities.
You can now enter a place name in the location field and not just a postcode, this lookup is powered by Google Places which have over 2 million defined areas and places. This is a great improvement as its now possible to perform a search like; show me opps within 2 miles of Liverpool, or Bristol University and so on.
There are extra filters like accessible and expenses paid and the sorting algorithm has been improved. If a search is entered the results are automatically ordered by relevance and those opportunities with the search terms appearing closest together will be at the top.
The new search also prevents empty searches resulting in hundreds of unfiltered opportunities being returned. For those of you lucky enough to have hundreds of available opportunities a user will be asked to enter at least a distance or a search string in order to limit the number of search results.
New Opportunity Applying Process
The applying process for opportunities has now been improved greatly. When an opportunity is marked as APPLYING, volunteers will be able to view the opportunity and its sessions but will not be able to join any sessions. Instead, they are asked to “apply”. At this point, any pre-requisites demanded by the opportunity are completed and then they are passed to an “New Applicant list”.
The applicants for the opportunity are visible on the opportunity management page for the admins/providers. From there you can view their details and pre-requisites and decide whether to approve or deny the application.
Approved volunteers are informed and are then able to join sessions as normal. Denied volunteers are also informed but are not able to join sessions or reapply as they remain in the applicant table as unsuccessful.
Open-badge Awards
You can now create your own badge awards to give to volunteers. These are designed around the OpenBadges system and volunteers will be able to store these badges in their own external badge backpack and use them anywhere where OpenBadges are accepted.
OpenBadges are a great way to reward volunteers in a way that enables them to build a recognisable portfolio of achievements that they can use to develop their skills everywhere.
Once a badge has been ‘baked’ into their backpack they can choose where and with whom to share that achievement.
In this first iteration, you can only award badges manually using the volunteer profile. We are looking at the possibility of creating automated awards based on a number of criteria; hours, opportunities, length of service etc. We would love to hear your ideas about the kind of badges you might like to have?
We have opened up more of the system for much greater customisation by the super admins.
Using the super admin menu you are now able to customise all “registration form labels”, “help titles” and “help content” right from the SETTINGS menu.
Fancy a new front page look? Then check out the new LOOK & FEEL menu and enter your own HTML code for the front page and get a quick preview before saving and making live.
For power users, there is a CSS section where you can change the entire site style if you want. You can target home page elements, links, containers and change margins, colours and anything else you want. The custom CSS file is loaded after all defaults so you can override any existing settings.
If you would like your site to be updated but don’t have the skillset to do it, in-house, drop us a line and one of the team will get in touch to talk through your ideas and potential costs.
POD System
Enterprise clients can now choose a new type of application structure that we call PODs. This enables you to split up the administration of providers and opportunities into PODs and assign administrators to those PODs.
POD administrators only have access to the providers in their POD and the opportunities they have created.
Each POD also has an editable mini homepage that the POD admins can create to advertise their own opportunities.
It’s a great way to enable separate departments within a larger organisation some autonomy whilst keeping all your opportunities in one place for your volunteers. If you think the POD might be something you and your organisation would like to know about then get in touch with our sales team on 0161 914 5757 and they can talk you through the options.
Day Schedule Report
The day schedule report is available from the REPORTS menu and offers a quick insight into the activity on any day across all opportunities and events.
Simply pick your time period and the report will return all sessions that are happening within that period, including the volunteers on each session and stats about that session. You can also check in volunteers right from this screen which will log their hours for that session.
Its a super easy way to keep track of what’s going on over the days and weeks ahead.
Invite Volunteers via Email
Invite your existing volunteers via their email address. Just paste a list of comma separated emails or upload a CSV to send out an invite email with a link to reigster on your system. Maintains a list of all invited volunteers and lets you know if they have registered yet. Providers can also upload their own separate lists and if volunteers join via the Linking address in the email, they will automatically be linked to the provider sending the invite.
For administrators you can find it in the SETUP section of the settings menu. For providers it is in the VOLUNTEER menu.
Search and Download Expiring Criminal Checklists
Search for volunteers with expiring criminal checks and also for those criminal check applications that are overdue and download the results.
An enforced maximum validity for a criminal check has been added to your application options screen. Whenever a criminal check is added this date represents the maximum allowable time before the check expires. If an expiry date is entered which is beyond this date it will be reduced to the maximum allowable period.
This ensures that all criminal checks on the system have an expiry date and the new search page makes it easy to find expiring checks and get prepared.
All Transaction Emails Sent via Mandrill
All our transaction emails, that is emails that are sent automatically in response to an action like joining an opportunity, are now sent via Mandrill. Mandrill is one of the largest transactional email platforms, sending billions of messages a month.
This move will aid deliverability and reduce false spam alerts.
Looking for inspiration? For many of us, it’s a big part of modern life and everyone searches for that feeling in different ways. There’s a special group of people who are often described as inspirational! People that give up their time to do better by the world, to try and make a difference where they can: volunteers.
We call these people “volunteers”. Their motivations are varied, but often selfless or at least for a goal greater than their own satisfaction and here we will discuss the 5 reasons why we think volunteers are great.
“Volunteers don’t get paid not because their acts are worthless but because they are priceless.”
As crazy as this sounds volunteers are not paid! This in itself makes them special, but it’s not because they do it for free it’s what they actually do that sets them apart. They change the lives of people because they want to and not because they are employed to. Here at TeamKinetic, we have been able to witness hundreds of thousands of logged hours from thousands of volunteers, it’s simply wonderful to see and we hope for many many more wonderful people engaging with fantastic causes.
“One of the greatest gifts you can give is your time.”
How do you value people’s time? Is it a cost replacement? Or is it more subtle than that, is it their very presence and the joy or comfort they can bring? This is not even considering the value the volunteer places on their own time. Valuing your volunteers is very difficult and fraught with pitfalls, but one thing we can all agree on without those people who give their time many services and people would be worse off.
“Don’t live for what you get, live for what you give.”
It is often quoted that real happiness comes from a sense of fulfilment. We would suggest that aspiring to freely give your time may be a way to achieve that fulfilment, to feel part of something greater than yourself is a particular human trait. Not to focus on what you get, or what you have but on what you can do for others. Volunteers epitomise this way of life, this is the reason many volunteers give so much. Don’t believe us about this? Read this and see what the research says about volunteers being happier and healthier.
“Wherever there is a human being there is an opportunity for kindness.”
We all have choices when it comes to how we choose to live our lives. We can choose to be kind, and fulfil the potential every single one of us has. I’m not suggesting every volunteer is a saint – far from it. But those who volunteer are choosing to try and be kind, to try and improve their community or cause. We salute those who make that choice.
“You may not have saved a lot of money in your life, but if you have saved a lot of heartaches for other folks, you are a pretty rich person.”
The value a volunteer provides and also extracts from their experience is difficult to quantify. The idea that saving the hearts of others is worth way more to people that any amount of money sounds crazy. But if a volunteer can help change a person outlook, improve their quality of life, share their time, wisdom and experience for the good of others, develop friendships, reduce loneliness, create opportunities for those that otherwise might not have them. These are potentially life-changing events for the person the volunteer might help.
So we say volunteers are special, and we at TeamKinetic take this time to say thank you, volunteers, for your time, your commitment and for believing that you can make a difference. We think you’re great.
Find out how TeamKinetic can work with you to recruit, manage, and retain your student volunteers.
You can find TeamKinetic on social media and listen to our podcast:
On the 12th September 2018, TeamKinetic hosted their 4th annual sports volunteering conference at the Manchester metropolitan university. The aim of the second day of the conference was to make people aware of what TeamKinetic offered as a brand and what the world of volunteering has in store for the future, as well as what issues we are facing today. To give an overall better experience for the volunteer.
The attendees on the day were from a wide range of sectors which we feel helped when debating. We had the likes of the Liverpool football club foundation and Sport England from the sports industry as well as MMU and the University of Manchester from the education sector. Finally, we as also had many charities/Volunteer centres in attendance such as the Youth hostel association and The volunteers association Wales.
The day had a clear structure in terms of what was going to be to be involved. This included: Breakout sessions, Panel talks with both volunteers and industry leaders and also a lunch break which gave TeamKinetic a great chance to interview attendees and get some personal feedback on their experiences.
OPENING TALKS
After being welcomed by the TeamKinetic receptionist’s all guests were given an introduction speech and welcomed by our sales director Chris Martin who explained who was talking and what was going to happen over the course of the conference in order for the day to run smoothly.
The first speaker of the day was BBC unsung hero Denise Larrad who gave her talk on what volunteering meant to her and her good and bad volunteering experiences. Denise also very kindly brought along her award which many guests had the privilege of getting their pictures taken with.
Another ‘Big name’ for the day was Kirsten Stephenson who is head of volunteering at Sport England a national organisation with a good reputation for governing sports all over the country. She gave a very insightful talk about how cross-sector collaboration can unlock the potential of volunteering in sport and physical activity. You could sense within the audience that everything she said was getting high levels of engagement. We saw this through how much interaction we were getting through twitter whilst her session was on.
BREAKOUT SESSIONS
We then led all attendees to different breakout sessions in which they got the option of which ones they wanted to attend. The three sessions available were hosted by Chantel Scherer who spoke about using behavioural sciences to retain volunteers more effectively. This particular talk proved to be very successful as it drew the biggest crowds on the day. Claire Jones, Head of volunteering at St.Helens volunteering centre also spoke during this breakout session regarding the benefits of good support to volunteers. Again this was another one of the sessions that made for good social media traffic as many people were interested in what she had to say.
A further speaker was Mike Howlett who touched on the importance of diversifying volunteers in order to engage the wider community. I attended this session myself and all in the room were very impressed with both Mike’s industry knowledge and the points he was raising. People from the industry said after his talk: “I am definitely now more well informed about the voluntary sector than I was before”. This was very promising to hear from a TeamKinetic point of view as it is exactly what we wanted to get out of the conference.
LUNCH AND NETWORKING
Lunch followed the first breakout session of the day. It was provided by the catering staff of MMU and everyone seemed to enjoy it. During this interval, it gave people the chance to network with each other which also proved to be a good part of the day as many people from the different sectors were able to merge their ideas together and discuss the issues they faced every day to see if others could possibly have the solution.
TeamKinetic also used the break to optimise what we got out of the day. Marketing coordinator Ash interviewed many of the guests to get their thoughts on the volunteer management service that we provide and also volunteering in general. This will be good for us from a marketing perspective so we can get a greater understanding of our customers.
Speaker on the day Nick Lowden from Greater Sport said that “One thing I liked was the networking at lunch, it was good to have time to speak to other people in the industry”. Comments such as this are very positive as it also gives us things to build on for the next conference.
Potentially the most insightful part of the day was the Panel session which was led by Chris Martin with panellists; Fiona Liddell, Kristen Stephenson, Nick Lowden and Denise Larrad.
During this particular session, we allowed the floor of industry members to ask about the current pressing issues of the day and what the future holds for the volunteering. Once again the social media engagement for this part of the day was brilliant with many people using the #TKvol. Despite this perhaps the best part of the panel session was the number of questions that were being asked by the floor, it was very promising to see so many people taking a genuine interest in the answers of the panellists.
CLOSING SESSIONS
The day ended with one final breakout session, again split between three speakers; Fiona Liddell, Laura Hamilton and Chris Martin. The attendees got the choice of what session they wanted to go to and it was nice to see a good number spread out evenly across all of the sessions which just highlighted the calibre of speakers on the day. We hope that at least one of the speakers
Overall the 4th annual volunteering conference by TeamKinetic will go down as a success. We would like to thank everyone that contributed to the day as everyone played a role and we look for to seeing more people next year!
If you would like to know more about volunteer management software please do not hesitate to visit the TeamKinetic website https://teamkinetic.co.uk/
There will be a host of exciting speakers, from award-winning volunteers to key members of the sector. After three successful previous events we hope to welcome back many of our delegates, but if you have not been before, why should now?
Let us help you make the right choice.
1. NETWORKING
There will be people from right across the volunteering community at the event, meaning this is the perfect opportunity for you to break out the old business cards and get networking. The knowledge and experience available from the delegates in the room will be second to none and building that network of volunteer managers will only provide you with more help and support.
2. BE INSPIRED
We are lucky to work in a job that is never short of amazing and inspiring stories and anecdotes, and this event will bring some of these stories to life. Our speakers all have stories to share and insight to impart. Our opening speaker, Dennise Larrad the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Unsung Hero Volunteer of the year for 2017, is going to open the event sharing some of her experiences as well as what it’s like to share a stage with Tom Daley.
3. LEARN (About TeamKinetic amongst other things)
Whether you have 10, 100 or 1000 volunteers, there will be learning and opportunity to exchange ideas. Our speakers have a wealth of experience and the format of the day leaves lost of opportunity for you to question them and to dig deep into their knowledge. We also invite you to come and chat with us at TeamKinetics stand, our volunteer management software can cater to your volunteer management needs and is available at a price that might just surprise you.
4. GET A GREAT DAY OUT OF THE OFFICE!
We will fill your day with interesting people, great knowledge and insight and some thoughts for you to take back to your organisation to think about. On top of that we will put on a good buffet, so at worst you don’t go home hungry.
It would be fantastic if you could come along to this event and if you are interested you can purchase your tickets here
