Author: Rolf Herbert Page 16 of 18

Plugin with Do-It and TeamKinetic

Here at TeamKinetic we’re excited to tell Volunteer Managers about the launch of our new Do-It plugin. We believe we are the first volunteer management application that offers a direct method for leveraging the power and reach of Do-It’s opportunities finder right there on your dashboard.

Do-it.org is the UK’s largest database for posting volunteer opportunities, with an established presence and heritage since 2000. Since then it has connected millions of volunteers to opportunities available throughout the UK. The database hosts more than 50,000 volunteer opportunities which appear in the top results of Google organic searches for volunteering in the UK. As a result, Do-it.org is a great platform to promote volunteering opportunities to a wide audience of potential volunteers and is frequently the first port of call for first-time volunteers.

TeamKinetic understands that it is great to be able to post opportunities nationally, but organisations also need to be able to track the attendance of their volunteers, receive feedback and produce data driven reports. Since its conception, these functionalities have been core to the TeamKinetic software service.

For the last eight years, TeamKinetic has been improving volunteer manager’s ability to manage their workforce through the intelligent volunteer management software. It has been used by Local Authorities, Universities, National Governing Bodies and a host of other third sector organisations. Collectively their volunteers are quickly approaching the one million hours logged and tracked through TeamKinetic software.

We believe that by combining the use of Do-It.org with TeamKinetic’s volunteer management software, third sector organisations will be able to harness the full potential of both systems. Do-it.org is a great place to advertise opportunities and TeamKinetic is ideal for managing the volunteers to fill those opportunities. Our new plug in will let you do just that.

When creating new opportunities, simply enable the “share nationally” option and that’s all there is to it. In the background, the plugin creates the opportunity and uploads the provider details. The opportunity is searchable on Do-it.org and Google almost instantly.

After a prospective volunteer finds the opportunity they will be directed back to your opportunities page, where they can then sign up and join in. You’ll get the benefits of TeamKinetic’s management tools plus the advantage of being listed on Do-it.org, the UK’s largest volunteer website. Win-win!

GreaterSport Awards

The 17th annual Greater Manchester Sports Award was held last Friday at the Emirates Lancashire Cricket Ground and TeamKinetic were lucky enough to have been invited.

Dressed to impress, we attended one of the most enjoyable events of the year. Not just because of the tasty three-course dinner or the chance to see a handful of famous individuals, including this year’s keynote speaker Gary Neville, but for what the event celebrates in its purest form: a sense community, belonging and achievement.

Each year the event brings together individuals from all walks of life in Greater Manchester to share their achievements in Sport and Physical Activity. Throughout the evening a total of eight categories were celebrated, with each of the ten Greater Manchester Districts nominating an individual from their local area. Each of the nominees and category winners had inspirational stories that made you feel proud to live in such a proactive area.

The evening focused on recognising the sporting achievement of many, but TeamKinetic took special note of three specific categories: the Volunteer of the year, Coach of the year and Unsung Hero of the year. For these were the categories we supported most. As CEO of GreaterSport Yvonne Harris stated: without these amazing volunteers the majority of sporting achievements would never have been possible. It is the time, effort and willingness of each volunteer that helps make so many achievements possible.

For those in sport they often started for the enjoyment of the game, or to be a part of a team or just to be fitter. In doing so they became part of a team, learning how to play with one another, growing together and sharing their successes and failures.  They soon become part of the larger community within the club, built through a common purpose that demands cooperation, team work and communication.

This community provides a sense of belonging, one that innately encourages it members to give back and helps others receive the same experience they had. This often starts as a supportive role for their club, which leads to a larger responsibility through a coaching or an administrative capacity.  This reoccurring cycle of players turning into sport coaches keeps sport running at a grassroots level, ingraining it within our communities and as part of our culture.

The roles of these individuals are crucial in the running and development of the sport. Thankfully, events such as the GreaterSport Awards celebrate them, with an uncontainable passion. It is the recognising of their hard efforts and time invested into their sport that makes the event so special.

It is this passion that drives so many players to become volunteer as coaches, reefers and the key workforce.

For many organisations that rely on volunteers, they can learn a lot from sport and the devotion its volunteers have. The emphasis on community created within a club, can be powerful if understood. The motivation and inspiration a coach can give to those they work with can result in an unprecedented commitment. The community a club provides offers support, a sense of belonging and a membership for something greater than just a game. All of these factors can help build better communities for a  volunteer workforce.

Introducing TeamKinetic: Rolf Herbert -The man behind the application

I’m one of the founders of TeamKinetic and have been responsible for developing and maintaining our technical assets for the last decade. Wow that’s a weighty word….a decade.

As anyone that has been involved in a startup or building up their own business will know, you have to be adaptable and willing to learn….alot. It means I’ve developed a pretty wide skill set. I can provision a server, write a dynamic pivot query or build an Android app, but I’m always aware of how much more there is to learn. Whenever I read about real, focused experts explaining how to provide high availability multi node SQL servers, or build a super efficient sorting algorithm, I’m in awe of the depth of knowledge and experience they have.

Luckily for me there are plenty of excellent communities full of geniuses willing to share knowledge and ideas. They don’t get paid, they just love sharing the cool stuff and volunteer their knowledge and time to anyone that asks. I couldn’t do the wide range of tasks that are required without their help.

I don’t know how many of our volunteers are geniuses, but from the data I collate its clear that they invest a huge amount of time and effort in helping their communities. There are individuals that have logged hundreds of hours, supporting their neighbours and cities.

My own volunteering efforts are small by comparision but I do regular volunteer for charities and organisations that resonate with me. At present I’m driving for Age Concern, dropping people off at tea parties on the weekends. I’ve also volunteered with Silverline who match you with a retired person that you call every week at a set time and have a natter.

I watched my own grandad become more and more isolated once my grandma died. He lived in Tenby which was a 2 hour drive from where the rest of the family lived and he refused to move or enter a retirement home so we couldn’t be there every day. There always seemed to be an internal struggle for him; in admitting he was lonely or needing help, that admission would make his age and growing infirmity real and his independence became his most treasured faculty.

So my history tugs me towards those organisations that help keep isolated people connected. But volunteering can lead you in unexpected directions.

My wife and I were donating at a charity shop and did some hours helping out at a Barnardos shop. We read some literature about fostering, looked into it, and made a few calls.

We ended up doing short term respite breaks for full time foster families, despite not ever considering having our own children. We looked after three different young people over the next five years. I always felt a bit of a fraud as it was no trouble and mostly good fun! After a few years completing the training and course work I obtained a professional qualification in foster care.

Once you open a door there are always plenty more behind it. Keep volunteering, people need you and appreciate it, sometimes even more than you realise.

Rolf Herbert

Software Engineer

rolf@teamkinetic.c.o.uk

Introducing TeamKinetic: James Carr – Could I be d’Artagnan?

Continuing our celebrations of #IVMD17 and the latest update to VolunteerKinetic 7.3, we’d like to introduce our newest addition to the team, James Carr.

Much like d’Artagnan, my journey began by setting out in search of a new beginning.

I was ready for a challenge, using my skills and knowledge to prove myself as capable.

My studies in Sport Management had equipped me with the theoretical knowledge needed and a handful of short-term internships had given me the practical opportunity to apply it. I enjoyed the dynamic nature of marketing, from understanding the needs of the target audience to creating strategise and analysing results. I also realised how important it was for me to believe in the company, its purpose and values.

When I was invited to an interview at a small business office in Manchester for the role of Marketing Coordinator, I knew such an opportunity had arrived.

Despite all my preparation, on the morning of the interview, my apprehension began to build. With clammy hands, a dry mouth and my collar feeling like it had shrunk an inch since setting off that morning; I eventually arrived at the entrance.

The moment I met the three men who greeted me I relaxed. Perhaps it was their warm welcomes, the light-hearted small talk or just the overall friendliness of these guys that made me so at ease. As we spoke I realised that their work was more than just a job. Collectively they were driven by the goal of delivering a product focused on: building better communities through volunteering.

Of course, those “three men” were TeamKinetic – Chris, Rolf and Steve!

Thankfully, our introductions skipped any duels! In a short space of time, I gained a real understanding of their camaraderie, the crucial role each played and the extensive knowledge that each possessed in understanding their client’s needs.

In the interview, I shared my vision for a  Boxing Club at the University and the story of how I turnt it into a reality.

I coached my club each week, drilling them on technique, fitness and skill. My success measured by the numbering regulars and increasing new members who turned up. I learnt the importance of organisation, communication and leadership.  My experience volunteering equipped me with skills I had never considered before, which I now hold to be invaluable.

Like me, TeamKinetic had their own vision. They wanted to enhance the ability of volunteers managers with a system that engaged volunteers, made their management simpler and more intelligent. Although they had already been working hard to make this possible, they needed someone to help market their brilliant product.

This was certainly something I could do. Thankfully, they thought so too!

Since settling into the team I have learnt so much more about those who make TeamKinetic possible. I have also had the opportunity to speak to some of their clients, who expressed how much they like working with TeamKinetic and their application.

Now my role is to support the company through marketing the great
service they deliver for the likes of Manchester City Council Council, Glasglow Volunteer Centre and Cardiff Metropolitan University.

With a real love of sport, volunteering and marketing, I am excited to begin this opportunity alongside everyone at TeamKinetic.

“All for one; one for all.”

James Carr

Marketing Coordinator

If you have any thoughts you would like to share, please feel free to contact me at:

james@teamkinetic.co.uk

Congratulations GreaterSport on your #GS1Million achievement

Local sports charity GreaterSport set the target in 2010 to achieve 1 MILLION people regularly active across Greater Manchester by 2017.

Partners across the County worked together to ensure more people had the opportunity to be active.

The most recent Active People Survey shows that the 1 MILLION target has been exceeded with 1,045,758 people regularly active in Greater Manchester.

We have loved being involved with GreaterSport and helping them achieve this fantastic milestone. Well done to everyone that has been involved!

Community

TeamKinetic is a proud Manchester company, and I am unashamedly Mancunian. My town. I often jokingly refer to as the centre of the universe when in other cities and countries. So the despicable actions of an individual on Monday night in my city have cut to my core. I have experienced anger, sadness, confusion, back to anger and now resolve.

Manchester was where TeamKinetic was born, working with Manchester City Council 8 years ago, we built the first version of our Volunteer Management Platform. Our colleagues in Manchester City Council knew that its people were its true capital, that if we could make it easy for the people of Manchester to give their time and skills, they would do this freely and they would make this city a beacon for best practice for volunteering.

So, it was with extra confusion I found myself watching the news and hearing how this young man, who was born in Manchester has committed this heinous and cowardly act. I found myself questioning my city and to some extent the impact of my last 8 years of work. As an individual who has worked for most of his professional life as a teacher in Manchester, then on helping to build communities, I was left feeling frustrated, disappointed, and sad. Had my work be a waste, had we failed?

But yesterday evening I listened to the amazing stories of bravery and generosity that were told, from a homeless man running into danger to help the injured or how taxi drivers took young people home free of charge, how the people of Manchester rallied to offer accommodation, to raise money and to provide food and refreshments to those that needed them, to give blood and then to stand shoulder to shoulder against this mindless hate in a beautiful demonstration of the spirit of the city.

Events like that on Monday, born of hate, are designed to test our resolve, to instil a sense of fear across our city. They are a reminder to the us all that extremism continues to fester in the dark corners of our communities and there are people out there that are attracted to the rhetoric of hate.

It is with fresh resolve then that I move forward with our work, with the knowledge that the majority of people of Manchester, Britain and the world share our optimism in the human spirit. That the depraved acts of individuals and small numbers of extremists do not drive us apart, but bring us together to reinforce our shared humanity and drive us to continue to make our communities stronger and more resilient. We know this work will be difficult and there will be more dark days ahead where our resolve will be tested again, but working together, helping each other we will beat the hate with love and kindness.

The team at TeamKinetic send their heartfelt condolences to everyone that was affected by Mondays attack and we make the promise that we will continue with our work to help to build stronger communities in Manchester, the UK and the world.

TeamKinetic – our new integrated solution that includes VolunteerKinetic

VolunteerKinetic is a volunteer management web solution that enables you to grow and nurture your volunteer community and to manage thousands of volunteers from one integrated dashboard. We have also developed solutions for clubs, accreditation, reporting and others that exist along side VolunteerKinetic for many of our customers.

We have talked many times about how great it would be if all our customers could access any of them, easily from one login and that’s exactly what we’re doing.

 

VolunteerKinetic

A volunteer management solution that makes it quick and easy to grow and nurture your volunteer community with excellent communication tools that enable you to manage thousands of volunteers.

 

ClubKinetic

Bring together the power of volunteering and membership in your club community. Clubs can manage their own club profile, promoting their club and expanding their potential membership. Your community gains easy access to the entire range of opportunities across your area. Volunteers help clubs grow and clubs help volunteers grow.

 

BadgeKinetic

An accreditation system that lets you generate badges for your volunteers and other officials for major events. You can either create badges from events on opportunities on your database or create standalone membership for custom accreditation.

 

EventKinetic

Generate an event webpage which describes the event, lists volunteer opportunities and allows you to make documents and images available for download by users. Your volunteer opportunities can be associated with these events or just create a stand alone event to publicise it to your community

 

InformKinetic

InformKinetic gives you all the insight you need across your integrated hubs. Live reporting on the KPIs and metrics that are important to you in downloadable CSV format and visual reports online. Make informed decisions using accurate data collected automatically from across the TeamKinetic range.

 

SkillsKinetic

Generate course and training information for your community to access including session information and downloadable materials. Courses are available to search by your community and you can create HourTrade vouchers to use to reduce the cost of training. Let your community know how they can improve their skills.

For our existing customers this is great news as they will have access to some new and improved tools and will be able to increase the scope and usefulness of TeamKinetic for them.

New customers will be able to pick and choose which aspects of TeamKinetic they want to use and manage the total cost of the solution by only taking those modules they require, but being able to expand with their programme when required.

Our new TeamKinetic offering is not just a re-positioning of our existing solutions, there are also improvements across the range to aid integration and make each component more flexible. There will also be new front ends so that your customers and volunteers can get the information they need.

Its going to be an exciting time for us and we’ll be writing about each module and step on the way to the release of TeamKinetic.

VolunteerKinetic – Version 6.2

Version 6.2 is an interim release adding some sought after features and all the usual small fixes and improvements. It went live at the start of July, some of the new features include the following:

Provider Profile Page

provider profile edit page

EDIT profile page

Providers can now create their own web page which can be viewed by users even if they are not registered on the system.  All they have to do is goto PROFILE > YOUR PUBLIC PROFILE from their menu bar. Here they can upload their own profile images and descriptions, and preview what it will look like before they save it.

We have also added the ability for opportunity providers to set a custom website address making it much easier to promote (see right).

The providers custom web address looks like http://demo.volunteerkinetic.com/profile/custom-name-here

The biggest change was adding the ability to automatically link new volunteer registrations to an opportunity provider via the providers profile page. This is great for situations where an opportunity provider may need to communicate with a particular group of newly registered volunteers, even before they have joined any of their opportunities.

This is being used right now for schools, whereby each school directs their pupils to their profile page, when the pupils register by clicking the REGISTER TO ACCESS THESE OPPORTUNITIES button (see below) they automatically become LINKED to the school. The school can then contact all their signed up pupils and direct them to their new opportunities or add them manually, they can also track which pupils have signed up and how many hours they have logged on the schools opportunities.

Note: Providers can view all volunteers who have previously joined one of their opportunities via the MANAGE VOLUNTEERS > YOUR VOLUNTEERS screen, they can also view volunteers who have been LINKED to them either by the administrator or by registering via a providers profile page, by going to the MANAGE VOLUNTEERS > YOUR LINKED VOLUNTEERS screen.

PREVIEW profile page

PREVIEW profile page

Dont worry, all volunteer information and logged hours are recorded on your system in the normal way, the only difference is the volunteers are automatically linked to the provider.  This new approach encourages providers to promote their profile page, which will in turn promote your system and increase your volunteer workforce.

Geographical Grouping Of Volunteers

Finding and grouping volunteers is especially important for our national customers. There is now the ability to search for voluntees in a pre-defined geographical areas.  All you have to do is upload a custom area file that matches postcodes to your functional areas, be it counties, cities or something more abstract like north, south, east and west. You can also use this search criteria to send group emails to specific volunteers.

Other new features;

  • maximum age for an opportunity as well as minimum
  • its now impossible to remove (delete) an opportunity that has recorded hours
  • Search for volunteers depending on whether they have opted in or out of weekly emails

Keep an eye out for the V7 article which covers the major changes coming with the next version of VolunteerKinetic where it will morph into TeamKinetic, our new integrated solution.

 

VolunteerKinetic is a volunteer management web solution that makes it quick and easy to manage thousands of volunteers from one integrated dashboard.

TeamKinetic Version 6 – New Events and Provider Layout

This is one in a series of posts where I will be discussing the new features and changes we have built into version 6 of our volunteer management software TeamKinetic.

We often get asked how providers can tell volunteers a little about themselves and promote their organisation to the volunteers. Previously the provider profile has been limited to a few words and a logo.

In TeamKinetic Version 6 we have improved the look and feel of the provider profile immensely. Providers can now add a large background header image, overlayed with their logo and organisation name. There is also a WYSIWYG* text editor where they can complete their profile text, choosing their own colour scheme and font sizes.

You take a look at First Choice Sports‘ profile on our demo site.

We have also added a similar layout for the events pages which advertise and promote an event and the opportunities and roles available within that event. In addition, the events home page lets you add documents for the volunteers to download.

We think these changes will greatly enhance the visual experience for the volunteer and hopefully lead to more volunteer signups for events.

*What you see is what you get – A text editor that allows you to see exactly how your text will appear to the end user.


You can find TeamKinetic on social media and listen to our podcast:

Twitter       Facebook       LinkedIn       YouTube       Instagram       Podcast

 

Have you enjoyed using TeamKinetic? If you could leave us a review on Capterra, we’d really appreciate it! We’ll even send you a little thank you.

TeamKinetic Version 6 – Accreditation

This is one in a series of posts where I will be discussing the new features and changes we have built into version 6 of our volunteer management software TeamKinetic.

accreditation_badge

Some of our larger customers regularly run very large national events that may involve hundreds of volunteers across many roles. We already provide useful downloads listing all the volunteers on events and which sessions they are signed up for. What we didn’t have was any sort of accreditation service.

TeamKinetic Version 6 sees the release of our first stage in our accreditation process, the creation and printing of volunteer identification badges. This allows you to specify the text of the badge title, a general information section and an access area box. The badge comes complete with the volunteer’s profile picture, their unique ID and your organisation logo.

Once you are happy with your text, you simply select the opportunity or event you wish to create badges for and a PDF document will be automatically generated containing a single volunteer on each A6-sized page. This document is ready for printing in-house or sending out to your preferred print shop.

We think this will be a great time saver, and even if you do not need a specific ID card for your event or opportunity it’s a good method of giving your volunteers a sense of belonging and building that team mentality.


You can find TeamKinetic on social media and listen to our podcast:

Twitter       Facebook       LinkedIn       YouTube       Instagram       Podcast

 

Have you enjoyed using TeamKinetic? If you could leave us a review on Capterra, we’d really appreciate it! We’ll even send you a little thank you.

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