Author: Rolf Herbert Page 7 of 18

5 Reasons Why We Need Volunteers

By

On 18th November 2019

In News & Views

More than 1 billion people volunteer globally, as you can imagine that is a lot of volunteering hours to be added up. In fact, this is equivalent to 109 million full-time workers. Safe to say that volunteer managers have their work cut out for them, but why do we need so many volunteers?

1. Richness is not what you think

You can spend endless money on watches, clothes and gadgets. But how much have you spent being there for the ones we love and care about the most?

Do possessions make you rich? Well, I don’t have that type of richness. My richness is life forever.

Bob marley

Volunteers are not there for the money, but only to be of assistance to others they can work and connect with. Not because they’re employed to, but because they want to. They put their needs before others without monetary requirements – it’s purely from the heart. Here at TeamKinetic, we have been able to witness millions of logged hours from thousands of volunteers, it’s simply astonishing to see and we hope to see many many more wonderful people engaging with fantastic volunteering opportunities.

2. The greatest gift of all

Volunteers truly grant their greatest gift of all. Time. We’re all constantly caught up in the rat race of busy working lives, sometimes I think a few extra hours in the day would be a blessing.

Volunteers give their time day in, day out. This value can not be quantified or replaced, but it can be valued and respected. We can all agree that without volunteers’ generosity, many services and experiences would be much worse off.

3. Lights in the darkness

Volunteers provide comfort for those who are going through difficult times in their lives. A small light in the darkness can really affect someone in a million different ways. It’s the light that sparks hope that someone cares and is willing to spend time but most importantly listen. Read more about how volunteers are making others feel better about themselves, visit Samaritans and see the true difference being made by volunteers for yourself.

4. Resilience and reliability

Volunteers weave safety nets within various organisations which give organisations a resilient and reliable backbone of support which can help the structure and workflow within many organisations.

Volunteering creates solidarity and connections among people by working together to build resilient communities. At TeamKinetic we know the importance of being able to build and unite people through volunteer management. Management allows volunteers to be able to join and find opportunities easily within communities.

5. Irreplaceable value

We take many things for granted in life, how many of us allow ourselves to sit back and take a moment to appreciate one another?

The same goes for volunteers.

The value a volunteer holds is irreplaceable. Every volunteer is different in their own way. Although volunteers may be completing the same opportunity, each will have characteristics which make them uniquely valuable.

Five seems such a small collection and I assure you, there are many more reasons why we need volunteers. We champion the idea, that our customers and users, to value and respect volunteers more often. They achieve a lot more than we sometimes imagine, they truly are the backbone of many brilliant organisations.

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 1.4 – Post Release week two. Gifting owed hours.

By

On 15th November 2019

In Application Features and Tutorials, TeamKinetic Features

Next in our on-going FaceBook Live sessions for TeamKinetic 1.4 we will be talking about gifting hours and how TeamKinetic approaches the whole idea of  hours and rewards.

Usually a volunteer attends a session or a flexible opp and logs their hours which are then also logged and approved by administrators or providers.

Occasionally however volunteers might have done extra hours, or you want to incorporate hours from historical projects that you know the volunteer deserves.

For these situations you need to gift the volunteer owed hours.

Just pop along to the volunteers management page and find the HOURS tab on the left. Within that section you’ll see an area called Add Owed Hours. Here you can add a title or reason for the owed hours, say ‘Previous work on the footpath programme’, then enter the total hours and minutes the volunteer will be credited with.

These gifted hours are treated exactly like hours earned on opportunities and will show up in your KPIs and reports.

If you mistakenly add owed hours you can remove them at anytime.

When owed hours are added the full hour total is added to the volunteer and provider, so the totals are kept in balance.

Join our Facebook live session on Tuesday 19th November to find out more about owed hours.

TeamKinetic 1.4 – Post Release week one. The document hub.

By

On 11th November 2019

In Application Features and Tutorials, TeamKinetic Features

I hope you are all settling into TeamKinetic 1.4 and enjoying the new features.

We’ll be continuing our weekly Facebook Live sessions over the coming weeks till we have covered all the new functionality and questions that have come up about the new release.

This week it’s all about the Document Hub that lets you create a repository of documents, links, and text that is accessible online by your volunteers and providers.

The document hub is available from the super admin settings menu (only visible if you are logged in as a super admin). From there you can add a resource for a volunteer or provider and create one of the three types; link, download, or just a plain text information resource.

For volunteers the resource area is available straight from their dashboard.

For providers it’s available from their help and resources menu.

The document hub is a great way to communicate your policies to your volunteers and providers, as well as to provide initial help and guidance for their first few experiences.

Join our Facebook live session on Tuesday 12th November to find out more about getting the most out of the document hub.

Volunteering in National Parks and Green Spaces

By

On 4th November 2019

In Heritage & Culture, News & Views

Fresh air and endless miles of thick grass green carpets cover the many hills and mountains across the English countryside. Doesn’t sound like the worst place to volunteer. Volunteering for any National park or green space across the UK is an excellent way to be active outdoors. England is fortunate enough to have ten national parks spread across the country. So why not get involved? Volunteering in green areas can include a whole range of excellent opportunities. 

Peak District National Park volunteers

Osian Wilson

Osian, who is autistic, started as a Youth Ranger and now volunteers almost every day. During his time as a volunteer Osian has built drystone walls, repaired paths, pulled ragwort, cut bracken, planted trees, felled trees, litter picked and carried out ecological surveys. Osian spends at least 9 hours a week volunteering.

MTB Volunteers

The Peak District MTB volunteers participate in a number of activities to protect, promote and preserve mountain biking in the national park. Members work voluntarily with The Peak District National Park Authority and Derbyshire County Council, carrying out sensitive repairs to many of the most popular trails in the Peak District

Which opportunities are best suited for you?

Volunteer Rangers

You could be like John Wayne
Or at least pretend to be…

Volunteer Rangers commit themselves to help maintain the National Parks. Rangers can expect a whole variety of tasks, from being up to their waists in waders, to helping park tourists. The excitement of being a Ranger is that every day can bring new challenges with the opportunities to work alongside new people. This may seem like something just for the older adults however, young rangers can start from the age of 14.

How do you fancy?

Red Squirrel transects to monitor squirrel behaviors and populations.

Interacting with visitors is an essential part of being a Ranger. Especially in the busy summer Holidays.

Building otter holts to encourage otters to re-colonise and breed along waterways.

Cotswold Wardens

You could also be like Ned Stark (warden of the North).
But we all know how that ended…

Anyone can become a Cotswold warden (Not everyone can be John Wayne though). All that is required is a commitment, willingness and a positive attitude. In exchange for your hard work wardens are provided with full training, all the equipment they need and travel expenses.

Activities can include

Working Parties take part in a range of projects from drystone walling, hedge laying, and tree planting to installing kissing gates and pond restoration.

Parish wardens work closely with parish councils, farmers and residents to help keep footpaths open and identify local features in need of restoration.

Guided Walks, the Cotswold Way is one of the very famous walking paths among many which attracts thousands of tourists each year.

Maybe you could help with school assemblies and days out exploring the Cotswolds.

Organisations you could be apart of

National Trust

The National Trust received over 61,000 volunteers between 2017 and 2018 giving more than 4.6 million hours of their free time to chip in and help the National Trust. Could this be you in the upcoming year?

TCV

TVC aims to make happier healthier communities. Many urban communities lack green space TVC aims to unite communities and green spaces together to deliver lasting outcomes for both.

The Wildlife Trusts 

Wildlife Trusts are located across the UK totalling to 35,000 regular and casual volunteers. There are many ways volunteers can devote their free time to help wildlife from, species surveying, community gardening, plant identification and the many more opportunities for you to explore.

People don’t get access to as much green space as they should to stay healthy, this can be because of many reasons. Nature of your job role, city living and limited green areas. So why not try to get out there? Think volunteering and think green!

TeamKinetic 1.4 – Release week ZERO. It’s release week!

By

On 31st October 2019

In Application Features and Tutorials, News & Views, TeamKinetic Features

This is it… the release date is upon us and on November 5th the next version of TeamKinetic will be appearing on your desktops.

This Facebook Live session will cover the excellent filtering and searching options that we have added to the volunteer, opportunity and provider search. We will also be talking a little about the release schedule and what we will be doing to try to ensure a smooth transition.

The new filtering selection allows you to add multiple filters easily without having to scroll up and down, we’ve also included custom fields where applicable.

You can add or remove filters automatically and the results will update each time.

The navigation bar allows you to scroll through the results, change the displayed number of rows, and tells you how many results in total we have found.

You can also download all the results to a CSV, this will create a file with a copy of every row, not just the ones you are viewing at the time.

If you select any of the results using the checkboxes in the first column the bulk task options will appear at the bottom of your screen.

The available options will alter depending on which search you are performing, but in each case, a window will pop up where you can confirm your action and provide any further details.

If there is only one action available for a row it will just be a simple text link at the end, this is also the case when searching for opportunities.

If there are multiple actions you’ll see the triple dot icon that you can click to bring up the actions, these are things like impersonate, email, manage etc.

You’ll start to see this table search and filtering pattern turning up throughout TeamKinetic, we think its a vast improvement and we hope you’ll think so too.

Join our Facebook live session on Tuesday 5th November to find out more about getting the most out of the application process.

TeamKinetic 1.4 – Pre-release week five

By

On 26th October 2019

In Application Features and Tutorials, News & Views, TeamKinetic Features

In our final pre-release Facebook Live session we are going to be looking at the opportunity application process and how to get the most out of applying opportunities.

Many of our customers have specific on-boarding processes for specific opportunities or types of opportunities. These checks take place before a volunteer can join a session on an opportunity.

Unlike requirements like inductions and criminal checks, the application process is specific to the opportunity and so all volunteers are required to complete the on-boarding before being allowed to join an opportunity.

When creating an opportunity look out for the selection options and from there you can choose to create an applying opportunity and also specify some of the other pre-requisites like references.

When a volunteer finds this opportunity they will be presented with an option to apply and will be asked to complete all the pre-requisites.

They provider and volunteer will each receive an email letting them know the application has been received.

The provider or administrator can manage the applicants from the regular opportunity management page. From the applicants tab they can view all the current applicants, approve or deny applicants and download the applicant list.

Once approved the volunteer is sent an email confirmation with a link to the opportunity and can then go ahead and join sessions in the normal way.

If the opportunity is a flexible opportunity the volunteer is automatically joined to the single session that represents the length of the flexible opportunity.

It’s important to remember that when an application is received, the volunteer is not yet on the opportunity, their application must be approved AND they must choose their sessions (if the opportunity is session based).

In summary the application process looks like this;

  1. Create an APPLICATION opportunity
  2. Wait for volunteers to apply
  3. Process your applicants on the opportunity management page applicant tab
  4. Continue to manage the volunteers that have joined your opportunity after having their application approved

Join our Facebook live session on Tuesday 29th October to find out more about getting the most out of the application process.

TeamKinetic 1.4 – Pre-release week four

By

On 20th October 2019

In Application Features and Tutorials, News & Views, TeamKinetic Features

This week we will be discussing a much requested new feature, that will give you far more control than ever over the communications TeamKinetic sends to volunteers and providers; customising automated emails.

TeamKinetic keeps your volunteers and providers up to date, with notifications about opportunity activity, chat room messages, applications, registrations and many other actions and events.

We have default content for all these messages but now you can edit and customise over 30 messages.

Its dead simple to edit a message, just click the edit button to bring up a window like below.

Each message has its own set of replacements you can use which will be replaced when sent, like opportunity title, opportunity link or the volunteer name. Just click on any of the blue replacement buttons in the right column and they will appear at the current position in your custom message.

You can also now attach files to these messages!

Join our Facebook live session on Tuesday 22nd October to find out more about customising your own messages.

IT and Information Governance FAQs

By

On 17th October 2019

In Security and GDPR

Have security-related job responsibilities, including oversight and accountability, been clearly defined and documented?

Yes, all jobs have detailed JD in place with attention to Information Governance and responsibility.  Chris Martin is currently accountable for Information Governance.

Are policies for information handling and labelling in place?

Yes.  TeamKinetic have policies for Information Governance, Continuity, Security, Personnel, Safeguarding, Data sharing and API use.

Are all third-parties vetted prior to being granted privileged access to data?

3rd party contractors do not have access to live data.  All data in encrypted at rest and in transit.

Do you maintain an inventory of all important information assets with asset owners clearly identified?

Yes, information assets are held in applications that are directly owned by customers. 

Describe the screening process for all users, employees, contractors, vendors, and other third-parties)?

Access to data is limited to the operational team.  These staff have all undergone IG training, DBS check and are part of the senior team here at TeamKinetic.  No other employees, contractors, vendors or other 3rd parties have access to user data.

Describe your hiring process and how a new employee is granted access to network resources and when these access rights are reviewed.

All prospective candidates are interview by a single team member and by then by a panel of at least 3 current employees.  All new starters are inducted and undergo a basic information governance session with Chris. Only staff with a specific requirement will ever be granted direct access to user data.

Do you conduct formal information security awareness training for all users, including upper management?

Yes, all staff undergo basic information governance training.

Describe the physical security mechanisms that prevent unauthorized access to your office space, user workstations, and server rooms/data centres?

All TeamKinetic sites enjoy the following physical security provision.

  • Security perimeter 
  • Proximity ID (smartcards) for Access control
  • Receptionist
  • CCTV cameras
  • Fire / Flood protection
  • Cables and network ports are protected from unauthorised access
  • On-site redundancy and engineering support

Controls are in place to secure access to networked services, This is available via a documented process.  Access to provision user accounts is reviewed at least annually.

Remote secure network access is granted using VPN with no Dual–homing / split tunnelling. Appropriate encryption methodologies are employed, documented, reconciled and monitored to AES 256 standard.

 

All systems in our internal and externally–facing and DMZ environments secured

Do you employ automatic locking screen savers when users’ workstations remain idle after set period of time?

All workstations are locked after a period of inactivity and require a password on resume.

How is the removal of equipment from the premises authorized and controlled?

All storage equipment is first comprehensively formatted and then physically destroyed before being removed.

How do you protect your systems against newly-discovered vulnerabilities and threats?

Our servers that control and serve TeamKinetic are patched with all zero day vulnerabilities and security patches as they are released

How do you prevent end users from installing potentially malicious software (e.g., list of approved applications, locking down the desktop)?

All workstations are operated under a lowest security clearance possible. Without administrator access it is not possible to install software on workstations.

Centralised virus and malware software is used to check workstations and isolate suspect items if necessary.

Do you scan traffic coming into your network for viruses?

Our email servers scan all incoming messages for viruses and quarantined accordingly

How do you dispose of computer media when they are no longer of use and are logs kept of media disposal activity?

All storage capable equipment is comprehensively formatted and then physically destroyed before being disposed of.

Describe how you protect information media (e.g., back-up tapes) that is shipped offsite.

Media and backups that are stored off site are protected by RSA encryption

Please describe your Access Control Policy.

Our access control policy is based on a minimal access level at all times.

Any users or systems that require access to our resources are first required to submit an access proposal explaining what access they require and why.

If successful the access request is then passed to our chief technical officer who will be responsible for setting up the minimal security level possible for successful access and the revocation of that access after the agreed time.

Any requests for access are logged. The revocation of access is checked by one other technical officer once the access date has lapsed to ensure access is not maintained.

Describe the process by which non-employee (e.g., contractor, vendor, and customer) is granted access to network resources and how often these are reviewed.

Only authorised systems engineers are allowed physical access to our remote servers. This access is logged via security card.

No third parties have standing access to the OS of our servers. Any access that has to be granted is provided via lowest possible security level users that are strictly time limited.

Any such permissions are revoked once access has been completed.

To what extent are user’s system use logged and monitored?

Full system logs of bother server and database access are stored for two weeks.

Is an information security incident log maintained?

Yes

Are incident reports issued to appropriate management?

Yes

Are audit logs or other reporting mechanisms in place on all platforms?

Yes

Are internal and external audits performed on regular basis?

Yes

Do you have documented business continuity plan?

Yes

Do you have documented disaster recovery policy?

Yes

 

Contingency and Continuity Planning

By

On 17th October 2019

In Security and GDPR

Contingency and continuity planning policy

 

Identified Potential Risks

The following identified risks will trigger a potential contingency event, each event is independently risk assessed and will be managed in accordance with this policy.

Natural disaster

  • Fire
  • Flood
  • Sudden cessation of trade
  • Sale of company
  • Hardware failure
  • Software failure
  • Malicious attack
  • Data breach
  • Litigation
  • Data theft

 

Application continuity and security

Our hosting network has multiple redundancies and security procedures including, but not limited to;

  • 24 x 7 x 365 Manned Security & Monitoring
  • Smart Card access policies
  • Internal and External CCTV systems
  • Security breach alarms
  • 24 x 7 environmental monitoring systems
  • Constant evaluation and testing of all systems
  • N+1 redundant Heating Ventilation Air Conditioning (HVAC) system
  • Fully redundant air handling units provide constant fresh airflow
  • Raychem Fluid Detection
  • FM200 fire suppression equipment
  • Dual independent power feeds, backed up by dual battery string Uninterrupted Power Supplies (UPS) systems (deployed as standard)
  • 2 Megawatt diesel generators to protect services from any single power failure
  • Diverse fibre routing via multiple carriers
  • Truncated internal cable network
  • ODF/DDF (Optical Distribution Frame/Digital Distribution Frame) bandwidth
  • Cross Connection to a number of Tier 1 carriers
  • Internal inventory systems track all cables, circuits and cross-connects
  • Scalable architecture including multiple redundant core switches and routers

Current up time (99.6%) and SLA agreed uptime (99.4%)

Bug fix procedure and error reporting (minor to mission critical) and estimated recovery time for various scenario outages from minor to complete disaster recovery as a table :

 

The maximum duration of service interruption upon total failure will be 24-48 hours. In this time a new server will be provisioned using the most recent whole server backup, brought online, checked and the most recent database backup accessible applied.

We expect service level to be near to 100% once the total failure procedure is complete, with a 24 hour allowance for complete back-up roll back.

We expect completely normal service to be resumed within a further 24 hours after the total failure procedure has been completed.

 

Triggering the Contingency Plan

Predictable Events

In the case of predictable and knowable events, such as the sale of the company, the contingency plan will be enforced at a set date that will be adequately advertised and discussed with our clients.

Unpredictable Events

When the event is unpredictable the plan will be triggered immediately once the issue is identified.

 

Failover testing, Pen testing and frequency

Our applications are penetration tested after every major release point. Any issues are identified and rectified and the penetration tests repeated.

Backup and recovery strategies are tested monthly for effectiveness, reliability and integrity.

 

Timely access to components necessary to make use of data

In the event of the company no longer trading we will make available an open source version of the code as it stands at the last version update.  A detailed technical specification of the requirements will accompany this to run the code. All user data will be available to download.

 

Minimize risk of loss

Database data loss is minimised by a combination of transactional and full backups. Transactional logs are taken every 15 minutes and a complete backup taken every day. In the event of data loss due to error or mis-configuration the database can be rolled back to the suitable transactional data point and the data repaired. In the event of total failure or server crash a new instance can be brought online with a maximum data loss of 24 hours.

Application code and content (uploads and other user data) is backed up in full each day to off-site storage. Centralised versioning software is used to maintain a full and complete back of the application code and all changes.

Updates and changes are developed on the beta branch of the application code and fully tested before being merged in to the release branch.

 

Data Encryption and protection against data theft 

Physical servers are protected by secure access and are only accessible by authorised personal.

Strong password policies are enforced on all physical servers.

All default ports are closed and only essential public ports are opened. Database traffic is restricted to only authorised servers and are not publicly exposed.

Latest OS security patches are applied on release.

All database stored passwords are encrypted with individual SALTs.

We recommend all clients utilise SSL to encrypt user to server traffic and prevent man in the middle attacks.

All API access is encrypted via SSL.

Changes

If you require further support or a different service level agreement, please contact the team on info@teamkientic.co.uk.  

This agreement can be updated on a customer basis with 2 weeks notice and the agreement of both parties.

Customers can opt out of any single update, but any opt out may have unforeseen impacts and TeamKinetic cannot be held responsible or liable for these.  Any opt out is at the risk of the customer.

5 Ways To Encourage Repeat Volunteering

By

On 15th October 2019

In Community, News & Views, Volunteer Management

You may have witnessed driving past a rescue team late at night in gruelling weather conditions, with deafening sirens and eye-capturing flashing lights. Or alternatively, you may know someone personally who may have ended their night by dialling the emergency services. Many UK rescue teams work voluntarily like Mountain Rescue and British Red Cross. But why would anyone want to keep volunteering for a cause which is considered physically and mentally tiring?

Here are 5 ways how your organisation can help retain your hardworking volunteers and keep them smiling.

1. Be Realistic

The Earth isn’t flat.

Let us skip back to basics if you want to engage your volunteers. Opportunities should have actionable goals in which will enable your volunteers to be successful when volunteering. If your volunteers have no clear set of directions, then how will he or she find their way? Volunteers also need to be clear on what your organisation stands for. Volunteers should be made clear of your mission and vision statements. This will then allow them to understand the type of organisation they are working for. Retaining volunteers to work coherently to achieving what your business wants will help aid success.

2. Show Results

It’s all very well getting volunteers to join opportunities, however where are the results? Showing results is highly important to positively motivate your volunteers. Volunteers want to hear feedback from an opportunity they have participated in. This can easily be communicated in a polite informal email or text, this would make the volunteer then feel valued. It’s key that your volunteers feel valued for their efforts. Because this generates a sense of belonging, which is a key psychological need which will help retain volunteers. Volunteers who feel like they belong will not need to leave.

3. Communicate And Recognize

The best way to establish trust between an organisation and its volunteers is to talk to them. This is a really simple way of further developing relationships. Which can be done over a vast amount of platforms, emails, text messages, phone calls, and social media. It’s important to know where your audience is so you can communicate with them in the most appropriate form.

Everybody likes to be recognized for their achievements, even your non-profit volunteers. This recognition will stimulate a sense of gratitude between the volunteers and yourselves, making them want to volunteer again. A key part of retaining volunteers is recognising any type of achievement because this affects the self-esteem of anybody. Think about yourself for a moment, would you like an achievement you’ve done to be praised? I know personally that any form of praise or congratulations lifts my mood and motivates me to keep on the right path. It doesn’t necessarily need to be a huge gesture, it could be verbal or written. Volunteers who are recognized for their achievements are more likely to have higher self-esteem, a more positive outlook on life, and better mental health.

4. Involve the community

Try to be inclusive to everyone to retain volunteers, by encouraging volunteers to get neighbours, friends, and family members from the community to join opportunities with them. This will only make the experience more enjoyable for the volunteer. We all need to feel emotionally and physically safe, and we all need close supportive relationships. A sense of community provides this, by giving local people a voice to connect with one another and meet new people.

5. Volunteer Management

Does your organisation offer opportunities which are concise, clear and easy to connect to online. If not, then it will be vitally important that you consider using volunteering management software. If your services are easy to use then you are ten times more likely to retain existing volunteers. Making your volunteering management system easier will help your organisations productivity, plus will help the volunteers connect to your opportunities. Statistically, adults over the age of 65 are more likely to volunteer; this age group of people do not consider themselves to be most confident online and are hesitant to use a computer. Meaning the simpler your online portal, the more likely you will be to retain existing volunteers.

A final note from Teamkinetic

Although these five tips for retaining volunteer are important to follow, it’s equally important to note. People consistently volunteer because volunteering is aligned and persistent with their own personal characteristics and self-image. People value what they are doing and are able to extract benefits from the volunteering experience, which helps with their own self-growth. Like anything in life people either want to do something or they don’t, you won’t be able to retain everyone. Although we hope you can.

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