An exciting, in-depth look at how to use TeamKinetic on a day-to-day basis to run your volunteer programme. Partly hands-on, your tutor will talk you through setting up opportunities and allow you to see the system from different users perspectives. At the end of this training session, you will have a good understanding of how each user interacts with the system and how to communicate and manage your volunteers and service providers.
Who Should Attend?
Either new employees who have taken over the role of administrator OR existing administrators who would like a refresher of all the main functionality.
What does it cover?
Volunteer Life Cycle
A practical session where attendees will experience the system from each users perspective covering the following:
Registering as a provider
[As a provider/admin] Creating an opportunity
Registering as a volunteer
[As a volunteer] Joining the opportunity
[As a provider/admin] Managing and communicating with volunteers on the opportunity
Managing Volunteers
Searching for volunteer/s
Search filters explained
Adding volunteers without an email address
Inviting volunteers onto the system
Criminal checks
Volunteer groups
Meetings and Inductions
Recognition and Rewards
Achievement badges
OpenBadges
HourTrades
Managing Opportunities
standardising activity tags
Shared opportunities
References
Events
Accreditation badges
Reporting and Insight
Reporting library explained
Exporting information
Effective Communication
Notifications
Volunteer news
Sending volunteers an email or text
Volunteer/Provider bulk emails
How to get Help
Support tickets
Contextual help
Questions and Workshops
Any questions will be answered and workshopped in the final segment, helping you to apply what you have learnt to your own unique programme.
How do I sign up?
You can access this training from your HELP > EXTRA TRAINING menu. Purchase the number of credits you need and then click on the BOOK button and select your course and dates.
You can check the latest training dates from within your system. Just go to ‘Help & Support’ → ‘Extra Training’
It has been a busy few months at TeamKinetic during the Covid 19 summer, but we’ve still been updating and fixing TeamKinetic regularly. What we haven’t been doing well is letting you all know about the changes, apologies.
We have now pushed through our last interim updates and fixes before our next major release in Q1/2 2021. TeamKinetic is up to version 1.3.3!
Here is what is new.
New Opportunity Details Layout
We’ve, hopefully, improved the layout of the opportunity details or more info page. Peoples monitors are getting larger with a higher resolution, so we have adjusted the layout to a two column view.
On mobile or small screens this reverts to a single column display.
External opportunities
When adding a quick opportunity (super admins can enable quick opportunities for their providers from the settings area), you have an extra option to mark the opportunity as external. When selected the user enters what external organisation is responsible for the opportunity, the web address for more information/application, and the advertising end date.
When a volunteer views the opportunity they are informed its an external opportunity, and are redirected via an apply button to the organisations own website.
It’s a great little addition for when you want to advertise an opportunity that you think your volunteers would benefit from but are not actively managing.
Secret Opportunities
These are not clandestine opportunities for secret agents, but a way to hide open opportunities from search results and opportunity suggestions throughout the application.
Volunteers with the exact link will be able to view and join the opportunity as normal, but those without access to the link will not find the opportunity.
In all other regards the opportunity behaves just like a regular opportunity.
Add Volunteer Meetings in Bulk
You can now create and add volunteers to meeting dates directly from the bulk actions on the volunteer search page. So you can add 10 or 20 volunteers to a group meeting very easily.
We’ve also updated the text a little to make it clear that you can enter a zoom/meet link in the location field if your meeting is going to be virtual.
Private Notes for External Volunteers
You can now add private notes to external volunteer profiles. These private notes are not viewable by the administrators of the volunteers home application.
New Volunteer Search Filters
You can find two new filters in the TYPE area for a volunteers disability and special needs status.
Completed Community Task Report
We are still working on getting some more insightful reporting around community tasks in the next major version.
In the meantime, you can download a complete list of all completed tasks from the community task page. It includes dates, times and which volunteer that completed the task.
You’ll find the download button at the top of the completed task column.
Healthcheck Status Included in Member Downloads
This is an update for the accredit module in TeamKinetic (interested in managing events and printing access badges straight from TeamKinetic? Get in touch).
When you export event member details the export now includes their latest healthcheck status.
POD Report
We’ve included a small POD report in the main reporting area which tells you how many admins, providers, opportunities, volunteers, and hours are in each pod.
We will be adding some more detail in the next major release.
Public Roadmap Accepting Votes
You can now access our public roadmap straight from the help menu, read up on what features might be heading down the road and also importantly, vote on the features you would most like to see.
We will be keeping an eye on the votes and endeavouring to push the most popular features to the front of the release queue, so get voting.
New Help Videos
We have added a tonne of new help videos to the Tutorial Videos section in the your help menu.
They are super short informative videos about specific features or processes and well worth a look.
Increased Maximum Image Size
The maximum width of images for provider and event profiles is now 1900 pixels, so the quality of the image on large displays is now a lot better.
We have also adjusted some of the image processing to improve the size/quality performance.
Facebook Live
Please join us for our Facebook Live on Friday 13th at 2pm on our Facebook TeamKinetic Customer Group to see these new updates in action. Make sure you are a member of this group before 2pm tomorrow to make sure you can watch the live! Just click here to go to the group.
Our Macmillan fundraising trip to the highest peak in the UK, Ben Nevis, was meant for a balmy May day in 2020. COVID put a stop to that, and after numerous false starts the date turned out to be a potentially chilly and wet late September 2020. As it happened the weather gods were fantastically generous and gave us a crystal clear, dry, and windless day. Our guide reckoned you only got 10-15 days like that a year.
Our group of 23 was split into rule of 6 compatible mini groups.We then hit the trail at a frosty 8am, with our groups starting at staggered times for COVID safety.
The trial is easy to follow and very well maintained. If you are thinking of doing it, don’t be put off by the height, its a moderate gradient all the way up but steady with no scrambling or climbing. We took 3 hours to get to the top at an easy pace for us. If you go in the summer and start early, you’ll have 10 hours of good light to reach the summit and return. If in doubt hire a guide who can make the decisions about weather and timings for you.
The trail starts at the visitor centre, crosses the river, passes an excellent pub and hostel and quickly starts to climb. After 90 minutes or so we got to Lochan Meall, the halfway point!
Lochan Meall – halfway
From the lake there are a series of switchbacks, the guide called them the Christmas Tree, and then a short steep section till you reach the summit plateau. And then the top!
At the top
It was a great feeling to get to the top and we felt so lucky and privileged to have such a clear and glorious day to look out from 1,345 meters across the Nevis Range and the Western Highlands.
We felt lucky and glad to be alive. Don’t take it for granted, cancer hits every family and everyone has their own story. On the way home we learnt that a friend had been diagnosed with terminal cancer; young, fit, new family and wife, a tragedy. It was an honour to raise a little over £7,000 for Macmillan who every day helps that family and that friend get the most from the time they have.
This was an amazing experience, and raising money for a charity like Macmillan only made it better.
Pictured above is a visible representation of how I picture myself leaving TeamKinetic on my last day.
Unfortunately for me, this is not quite accurate. And I don’t plan on any casual arson…
But this is officially my last and final blog for TeamKinetic, which has come around a lot faster than I ever could have imagined. TeamKinetic has mirrored a second home for me over the last year. You might even say, a home from home, with most weeks having spent more time with colleges than I had done with my actual family.
At The Beginning Of Time
Like starting any new job, initiation is always needed. You know the usual.
Chris (director): Here are the toilets, this is what to do in case of a fire, oh and do you like roller coasters?
Me: Erm… yeah sure, obviously lying not willing to let the other team members down, and completely ruin the works outing.
All I’m going to say is, never EVER again.
When starting any new job there are always initial uncertainties (some more terrifying than others). Will I be able to fulfil the job role? What if I hate my boss? What if he hates me? What if I don’t know the answer to something? All these little things almost fester in the mind. For me personally, I’m not a huge worrier and have a laid back approach to life. What will be, will be. However, I’m only human and these little things did bother me in the initial few weeks.
But I soon found my footing and so the journey began.
The Journey
Once I had found my inner confidence I was soon able to achieve more than I thought I initially could with TeamKinetic. Working alongside my trusty more literate colleague Alex, I or we were able to take on all the challenges which lay ahead. But I’m not here to bore you with the specific’s of all our adventures. So instead here’s a visual montage of a few things we have been involved with.
Between us
Over 100 blogs published
Consistent development of TeamKinetics SEO
Many many hours spent editing videos
Campaign planning our brains out…
Email, after email, after email
And many office laughs and giggles to accompany
In The End
Like any good story, the end is always near. But it’s been a great story to live.
Huge thanks to Chris, Steve and Rolf for having me.
And do give TeamKinetic volunteer management software a good look around, what they’ve developed over the years is actually pretty good!
Advertising an engaging volunteering opportunity is not always the simplest task. And often the clearest messages can become disfigured, resulting in your opportunity becoming less attractive to prospective volunteers. Below we’ve identified some examples of how to design and present a strong volunteering opportunity on your TeamKinetic platform. Each element has been streamlined to guide you through an on-brand TeamKinetic experience that is engaging and most importantly, eye appealing to your volunteers.
Where should your opportunity live
The most obvious place of all is your own website, for your prospective and current volunteers your website provides a safe and secure portal in which you can display your volunteering opportunities clearly for all to see. In turn, it will also allow you to easily collate data on the number of people viewing your opportunities page, by monitoring web analytics with Google Analytics.
Name your opportunity
Be clear and concise, over the years we’ve seen many volunteer managers fall victim to the mistake of over advertising their volunteering opportunity. The best practice would be describing the opportunity in its simplest form by using as few words as possible, for example ‘volunteer caretaker’. By over complicating simple roles with complex names will only off put your volunteers. You may also wish to add a location, contact email and phone number as these are the key details which your volunteer is likely to need straightaway.
Outline your opportunity
Now here’s your opportunity to say more, no pun intended… When writing your descriptions keep them short and sweet, whilst listing the main tasks the volunteers will be expected to do during the opportunity.
Why not offer an incentive? We’ve found from customer feedback that these make the opportunities more appealing to volunteers. For example, an incentive may be unlimited tea and biscuits or a free T-shirt. If we know anything about volunteers we know they love tea and biscuits.
Finally, summarise the benefits. In this part you will want to describe how this volunteering opportunity will bring your volunteer’s fulfilment. How will their volunteering efforts make a direct impact?
Be clear in your presentations of your opportunity, make key information stand out.
When and where?
These are the fundamental outlines which are absolutely necessary when creating your volunteering opportunity. Day, time and location will outline the commitment time frame in which your volunteers will have to make. Also if possible make clear what type of volunteering opportunity this is, event, ongoing or just a one-off.
Show off the good REVIEWS
Make your feedback visible, think of your feedback like your own personal catalogue of reviews. In a modern world filled with decisions, reviews offer simple and relevant guidance. Similarly to this, the feedback from previous volunteers will provide guidance to your potential volunteers, encouraging them to enjoy the same positive experience.
Call for action
Always leave some visible call to actions, these will encourage the volunteer to perform some form of action. Call to actions may be subtle but they are all nudging your volunteer to do one thing. And that’s registering on your opportunity.
Call actions can include
Social media sharing links
Document printing
Internal links (other opportunities, company website)
Register / Logging in options
Here at TeamKinetic we can help with all your volunteer management needs. Go to our website to create a demo site – it’s completely free! You can also call us on 0161 914 5757 with any questions.
Don’t hesitate to reach out on social media, you can find us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. You can also go to our YouTube channel to see some examples of the features we have to offer and some of the people we already work with.
Take a moment to picture your perfect world, to dream………….Compare that image to what you perceive right now. I suspect it feels different from your perfect world. We wanted to take some time to reflect on what is happening right now, and talk about how what we all can do to make a difference.
This week marks National Volunteers’ Week in the UK, which would usually be a great cause for celebration here at TeamKinetic, as it is a celebration of what can be achieved when people come together. However, this year, this has been overshadowed by the news from America. Yet again, we see the ugly spectre of racism raise its vile head, in the terrible murder of George Floyd by the Minneapolis police. Graphically captured on video and shared a billion times across social media. This shocking scene has put into motion a series of events that look set to rock the world.
Our challenge is how do we plot a course through these terrible events and come out of the darkness to stand together united and stronger, how do we make our dream of a more fair and equitable society for all people, no matter their colour, race, sexual orientation, come true?
Be the change you want to see in the world!
What does it take to build a healthy community? A community operates on some basic fundamental ideals. You need to share beliefs by which you will all choose to live. To do this there needs to be a level of trust between the members. Individuals respect the rights and beliefs of others even if they are different from their own. Individuals have a responsibility to their community to do what is necessary to ensure the beliefs of that community are upheld.
Communities, like families, support and help one another. They don’t always agree on everything, they sometimes have significant disagreements about how to do things, but with effective leadership, trust and respect they can achieve things which seem quite impossible.
Tribalism, partisan politics, popularism, and a rampant misinformation engine are forces that divide society. So now, more than ever we need to make the impossible, possible. To take this dreadful incident and use it as a driver for positive change. No matter your ethnicity, religious or political beliefs, we’re all members of one community, the human race, and if we are to all live together we must all be willing to accept and respect one another.
Each and every one of us has the ability to make a difference, to be a better member of our community. We must take personal responsibility for our actions, its not enough to do nothing, to stay silent. Community is not passive, you need to proactively work for your beliefs and to make your world the place you want to live. It will not be easy, there will be failure and argument, but if you believe in the dream we started this blog with we must all accept our responsibilities.
Be vocal, be organised, but remember. You can’t solve violence with violence
Real change takes time, it requires many millions of people to generate inertia, to vote for politicians that offer hope not hate, that offer a progressive choice not the status quo. This message is not just a hashtag or a social post. Real change, the kind that lasts for generations must be built on a bedrock of a change in peoples beliefs and values. We must all be more vocal when we see discrimination in any form, we must call it out for what it is, as saying nothing is as good as supporting it. We must look at how we support those who have dedicated their lives to fight discrimination.
People are angry. We are seeing violence, born of frustration and fear, but violence can not be the only option, it can’t be the default response, as it will only lead to more fear and more violence. Instead, we need organisation, action and a new community built on the shared beliefs of equality.
Spirit of Volunteering
2020 has been full of lessons about what people are truly capable of, both the good and the bad. We began lockdown by working together and looking after one another, with a pandemic still hanging over all of our heads, we must continue to look after each other through taking responsibility for our own actions. Volunteering has helped massively during this health crisis and is an amazing example of what people are willing to do. I hope we can take similar lessons from the COVID-19 response and use that same energy to make the world a little better for all minority people. Volunteering, getting involved, doing your bit, being an engaged and proactive member within your community, charity, education, sport or health group. It doesn’t matter what it is as long as we continue to unite and work together our dream may one day come true.
We are all one race The Human Race
TeamKinetic want to live by the same values we have discussed here. We want to support the type of organisations that are trying to make the world a more equitable place to live. That is why we are offering the use of our service for FREE for any community group for 6 months that can demonstrate how their work will help address these inequalities. If you would like to take advantage of this offer please contact the team here
TeamKinetic have been recognised by TechForce 19 as a technology provider that can help in the response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The following webinar is showcasing our new COVID-19 Task System, called the Community Task app – designed and made for COVID-19.
You can find TeamKinetic on social media and listen to our podcast:
We are delighted to see more organisations decide to use our COVID community task app and we recently zipped past the 2000 completed task mark.
We have been responding to feedback and continuing to develop the application and functionality; the most recent additions are showcased below.
Remember if you want to enable the COVID community task features you can do this at anytime from your super admin options menu.
Push Notifications
Users of compatible devices and browsers will now receive push notifications when new tasks are created or when any actions that concern them directly are performed; task application updates and new task chat messages. Unfortunately, Apple iOS devices do not offer support for push notifications via progressive web apps. Apple iOS users will continue to receive notifications via email when their task status changes or chat messages are sent.
Password Reset
Volunteers can now reset their password directly from the app. They can enter their registered email address and will be sent a PIN which they can enter directly into the app and generate a new password.
Photo Upload
When logging in, if the volunteer does not yet have a profile picture uploaded, the app will ask them to upload one.
The volunteer can change their profile picture at anytime by tapping on the current photo.
ID Card and QR Code
We have added an ID card to the volunteer app so that if challenged when outside the volunteer can show some evidence that they have a valid reason for leaving their home. The included QR code when scanned confirms the volunteers photograph and current status.
Repeat Tasks
A volunteer can now enter a repeat task when completing an existing one. So if the recipient asks the volunteer if they can come back next week, they can record it and you can track it just like a regular task that you have added.
All the task details will be replicated, except the date and time and auto assigned to the volunteer.
Target Completion Date Shown
The target completion date is now shown on the assigned task list without having to tap to show the task details.
TeamKinetic is proud to announce that we are working together with CIMSPA- the Chartered Institute for the Management of Sport and Physical Activity.
Like many working sectors across the UK, the sports and physical activity sector has also been hugely affected by COVID-19. With all gyms, sports and leisure centres being closed due to the pandemic. This has created many uphill challenges for the 500,000 workers in the sports and physical activity sector.
The Challenge
The task of keeping the UK physically active and healthy has never been more crucial. Although we are faced with self-isolating, social distancing and many other sanctions in our daily lives, doesn’t mean we can’t all stay healthy.
We share the same ambition as CIMSPA of being versatile in these difficult times to aid the sector to keep the UK active. Therefore we have offered CIMSPA our support in the form of our Advanced volunteer management software – built for COVID-19. We hope by becoming a CIMSPA supporter we will be able to help some of the 500,000 workers affected by this pandemic and help those stay active and healthy along the way.
Read more below on what CIMSPA is doing as part of their Stronger Together campaign
TechForce19 was developed as a call to action for all innovators who have the technological ability to be able to supply the elderly, vulnerable and those self-isolating during COVID-19.
The competition saw over 1600 entries who felt their technology could help to combat this pandemic challenge. We are very proud to announce that TeamKinetic has been shortlisted as one of the 20 companies who will receive the £25,000 to test their technology to help with the response to COVID-19.
TeamKinetic aim to use their volunteer management software and their new COVID-19 related volunteer management features to optimise staffing in care and volunteer sectors. This will be achieved by deploying TeamKinetic with 3 of our new customers, The Royal Brough of Greenwich, Halton & St Helens VCA and Groundwork working in partnership with Barnet Council. The application will be used in the recruitment and training of volunteers into non-clinical roles at a local level and providing essential services that people in isolation need.
TeamKinetic is already used across the UK with over 145,000 volunteers using the system and is used to power the national system Volunteering-wales.net on behalf of Wales Council for Voluntary Action (WCVA). So this award feels like a nice acknowledgement of the hard work that has gone into developing TeamKinetic into the simple to use platform it is today, over the last 10 years.
In preparation for taking on the TechForce19 challenge, TeamKinetic has been working with their existing partners to look at the specific requirements that have been created due to the pandemic. Partners like Manchester City Council and Glasgow Life have all played a key role in helping TeamKinetic respond to the crisis and to push our engineering teams to do some amazing work in response.
Read all about TeamKinetic and the other winners here
TechForce19 is an initiative being run on behalf of:
NHSX is one of the largest health and social care transformation programmes in the world, created to deliver technology that staff and people need. With the aim to utilise technology in the most efficient way possible in order to reduce stress on our NHS workforce.
AHSN connects the NHS and academic organisations, local authorities, the third sector and industry. They focus on improving outcomes for patients through innovation and technology.
PUBLIC is an organisation which aims to breach the gap that smaller start-up technological companies struggle to overcome themselves. Many small start-up organisations have made progressive headway in innovative technologies which have the potential of helping many people. However, they struggle with the initial start-up when connecting to the right people, like the governments and local authorities.
For more information on how TeamKinetic can help your orgainsation.
