News & Views Archives - Page 22 of 42

On 20th April 2020

During this pandemic our governments have told us to stay safe and stay inside, but what about staying safe online? It’s fair to say we’re probably spending a lot more time online recently. I mean, what else is there to do if you can’t leave the house? Whether you’re video chatting with friends, mindlessly scrolling through social media, or managing your volunteers from home, it’s important to stay vigilant online.

So what does this mean generally?

In short: be careful what new programmes/applications you use.
Do a little bit of research before you download and give personal details to a new app. Ask friends and family if they use it, consult trusted online sources and decide whether it can be trusted.

Remember: even apps that seem to be trustworthy can fall victim to security breaches themselves.
House Party seemed to be taking the online video chatting market by storm until rumours of data surfaced. Although these rumours turned out to be false, their reputation as a safe app was ruined. Furthermore, Zoom, an application used for video chatting/conferencing was actually subjected to a data breach. The CEO of Zoom held his hands up in apology but it doesn’t reverse the damage done.

If the phrase ‘too good to be true’ comes to mind, it probably is.
A growing number of people are falling victims to social media scams. Fraudsters posing as good Samaritans hosting giveaways on Twitter are some of the the people most likely to trick you. A few examples can be seen in this article from Refinery.

The ultimate way to stay safe

Passwords. Passwords are key. Having a variety of passwords for everything you use may seem tough – who has the memory capacity for that?! – but it could save you a lot of trouble. Besides, there are ways to keep track of all your passwords, whether it be a password-protected note on your phone, an app that keeps track of all your passwords, or going old school and writing them down somewhere.

So what does it mean for volunteer management?

Here at TeamKinetic we work hard to make sure all data is secure and we adhere to GDPR regulations. You may have seen our new COVID-19 community task dashboard for volunteering. With this, a new set of challenges arose: how could we give the personal data (like contact details and addresses) of people in need of help to volunteers without breaching their privacy?

Measures were taken to ensure that personal data was only given to volunteers after they’d been assigned a volunteering role, such as shopping for someone else or a simple phone conversation. If someone is not assigned to a task, they do not see the data and therefore ensuring the security of all involved.

First of all, ‘Private Data’ can only be seen by site admins. This can be used to easily sort tasks in your own way.

‘Data Shown to Assigned Volunteers’ does exactly what it says in the title! However, it is important to note that this data is only shown to volunteers after they’ve been accepted on a task. This ensures that no private data is given to the public unnecessarily.

Finally, ‘Public Data’ is shown to all registered volunteers looking at the community task dashboard. It shows everything prospective volunteers will need to know, e.g. the time, date, and task. Furthermore, you can add boosted security measures here too, such as requiring criminal checks and approved ID.

How TeamKinetic Can Help

We will always try and provide you with relevant news through our social media channels, especially in situations like this. You can find us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube.

If you want to help your community and require a safe, online method of volunteer management, you can use our system completely free of charge for the duration of the pandemic by going to our website and starting a free trial.

If you have any questions or concerns, don’t hesitate to contact us via phone: 0161 914 5757 or email: info@teamkinetic.co.uk

We also have a few other blogs about volunteer management during COVID-19, you can read them by clicking the titles below.

Managing Volunteers During The COVID-19 Epidemic
How organisations are adapting to the COVID-19 outbreak
How to effectively promote COVID-19 volunteering
Overcoming COVID-19 as a Community

How to effectively promote COVID-19 volunteering

In Application Features and Tutorials, News & Views, Policy and Operations, Press Releases

On 19th March 2020

TeamKinetic have added an entirely new set of roles and functions we call COMMUNITY TASKS to help our customers get volunteers to those people that need it most in the community. There is also an associated app for mobile!

https://teamkinetic.co.uk/blog/2020/04/08/faq-new-covid-features/

Communities across the country are already starting to rally in support of each other during this pandemic.

We’ve put together a video and step-by-step instructions below showing how to promote your COVID-19 related opportunities.

1 – Add tags and descriptions to your COVID-19 related opportunities.

In order for volunteers to find COVID-19 related opportunities you will need to have a way of identifying those opportunities in the system. You can do this by either making sure the opportunity title includes a key words like; covid, virus, corona, or pandemic, or add the words as TAGS to the opportunity.

Either of these solutions will allow the system and volunteers to be able to search and find the related opportunities via the normal search bar.

When you login you’ll find your custom search link in the COVID-19 notification bar. You can distribute this link via email and on your social media posts and when clicked will go straight to the COVID-19 search results.

2 – Add An Event Called COVID-19

An event is just a group of opportunities which have something in common. By adding a specific event name, that event will show at the top of the volunteers search results.

To use this method you will need to create an event called ‘COVID-19’ and EDIT your opportunities and mark them as PART OF A LARGER EVENT

3 – Email all volunteers about COVID-19 related opportunities

We have added a button at the top the dashboard when you login as admin:

This button will automatically email your volunteers a list of all virus related opportunities (email shown below).

If you would like to only email specific volunteers then you can email the special link shown when you login as administrator.

When clicked this link will go to the COVID-19 search results.

Further help

If you have trouble setting any of this up, please open a support ticket and we’ll try to help.

Stay safe.

How organisations are adapting to the COVID-19 outbreak

On 17th March 2020

We also have a general guide about how to effectively manage your volunteers during the coronavirus outbreak, click here to read it.

Here at TeamKinetic, we are happy to support a range of clients, from NHS services to charities and volunteer centres. During the current coronavirus pandemic, volunteers may be needed more than ever, but it is also important for everyone to stay safe.

The recent coronavirus outbreak may mean that volunteers are needed for a different selection of tasks. Due to the potentially delicate states of some patients, exposure to the virus could be fatal and should be limited as much as possible. Furthermore, the virus could mean a much higher number of patients in hospitals across the country, increasing demand for NHS volunteers both during and after treatment.

Business as usual?

The newest government advice suggests not. With volunteering often involving activities that involve a lot of face-to-face contact, the risk of spreading the virus is increased. For example, our client the NHS Northern Care Alliance usually advertise opportunities such as:

Offering companionship during meal times.
Wayfinding for outpatients and visitors.
Taking outpatients to appointments using wheelchairs if needed.

These activities involve high levels of social contact, a lot of which will include contact with high risk groups. Moving to focus more on digital or non-contact forms of volunteering may be the best move for everyone right now.

Volunteers adapting to the outbreak

It could be said that one of our clients, Humanity Road, is already prepared for a situation like this. They advertise a lot of volunteering opportunities that can be completed from home. This looks to be the safest bet for anyone with volunteers in the at-risk groups who still want to help however they can.

However, if you have volunteers who are not at-risk and want to help in other ways, here are some examples of volunteers adapting to the coronavirus outbreak…

Creating and delivering ‘care packages’ to those in isolation.
A pub in Liverpool started sending out packages containing toilet roll, food items and soap to pensioners in the community.
Offering general help for those in self-isolation.
A 17 year-old boy from London called Josh St John James set up a group of young volunteers to offer support in any way.
Cleaning.
Frequently cleaning and disinfecting objects and surfaces that are often touched by a variety of people in an environment can be an effective way to prevent the virus spreading. Although simple, it may be a task that a lot of hospital paid staff are too busy to do.
Preventing ‘bed-blocking’.
Teams of volunteers can ensure that patients can be discharged when they are ready, rather than block beds due to a lack of support at home. Becoming a carer can help take strain off our NHS services, helping a greater number of people recover in the long-term. As long as there are carers available, more beds will be freed up to take new patients in. It is important to note that if a volunteer believes they could have the virus, that they do not offer to care for someone who is in the at-risk group.

The care packages put together by The Bootle Arms, a pub in Liverpool.

TeamKinetic is always here to help

We will always try and provide you with relevant news through our social media channels, especially in situations like this. You can find us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube.

If you’re finding it hard to recruit volunteers or advertise opportunities without a digital system in place, you can use our system completely free of charge for the duration of the pandemic by going to our website and starting a free trial.

If you have any questions or concerns, don’t hesitate to contact us via phone: 0161 914 5757 or email: info@teamkinetic.co.uk

Managing Volunteers During The COVID-19 Pandemic

On 16th March 2020

In COVID-19, Volunteer Management

Even if you haven’t seen the lastest news or attempted to buy hand sanitiser recently, you may have noticed a decline in volunteer participation, and that pasta and toilet roll are now worth more than GOLD!

Keeping your volunteers volunteering and coming to sessions can often be challenging. During a virus pandemic, it’s sure to make that job even harder. In this blog Teaminetic aims to give some practical advice to keep your volunteers volunteering.

Reassure

Reassurance will be key. The message to volunteers should be to not panic, that volunteering should be proceeded as normal unless specific advice is received. During this time you may need a higher level of communication between yourself and your volunteers. Clear communication will help to remove the anxiety that volunteers may be feeling, and help you restore confidence through reassurance that you are doing everything possible to reduce risk.

Prepare

Preparation is key, and following a few simple rules will help.

Assuring hand sanitizing stations are filled and available
Surfaces that are regularly used have been cleaned, countertops, doorknobs etc.
Asking politely that anyone who isn’t feeling well to not attend sessions.
Provide disposable wipes so that commonly used surfaces like keyboards, remote controls, desks etc can be wiped down by volunteers before each use.
Enable micro-volunteering or volunteering from home.

Notifications

Keep volunteers up to date with the latest news from your organisation, via newsletters, emails, texts and social media channels. A lot can happen in 24 hours as we’ve previously seen. The fluid situation could mean that sessions or events might need to be cancelled at short notice, so try to keep your volunteers informed.

Volunteering from home

There is a high probability that people could be asked to work from home. If, or when, the government issues these measures, perhaps your organisation could adopt virtual or micro-volunteering in order to maintain volunteer involvement.

Micro volunteering involves low commitment action towards a cause. Micro-volunteers can choose how and when they volunteer, providing they have access to the internet via a laptop, tablet smartphone etc.

Micro-volunteering opportunities could involve.

Signing online petitions
Writing blogs
Re-tweeting and posting relevant content on Facebook and Twitter.
Providing feedback on marketing materials.
Creating Facebook Live meetings or Google Hangouts meetings.
Getting creative by generating material for upcoming events.

Micro-volunteering and virtual volunteering will not replace traditional volunteering. However, during COVID-19 it maybe your best option in order to maintain engagement and stay tuned with your volunteers.

In the meantime

What can we all do to help prevent the spread of COVID-19?

Cover your mouth and nose with a tissue or your sleeve (not your hands) when you cough or sneeze.
Put used tissues in the bin.
Wash your hands with soap and water often – use hand sanitiser gel if soap and water are not available. Remember to wash your hands for 20 seconds, whilst singing God save the Queen (Other songs are available).
Try to avoid close contact with people who are unwell.
Clean and disinfect frequently touched objects and surfaces.
Refrain from touching your eyes, nose or mouth if your hands are not clean.

Stay positive, remain calm and don’t worry, there’s enough toilet roll for everyone…

Volunteer Management Trends of 2020

On 9th March 2020

In Volunteer Management

What positive changes should volunteer managers be anticipating throughout the upcoming year? TeamKinetic aims to explore the changing avenues in which you may find yourself turning down at any given point.

Embracing Technology

This year alone there are predicted to be 51 million smartphone users, who will have access to various apps on their phones. For the volunteer manager, this is brilliant as many volunteer management systems – including our own can operate through an app. Creating more ways in which you can manage and communicate with your volunteers. Which will help your volunteer management run a lot smoother, not just for you but your volunteers as well.

Training

Phone calls and face to face meeting could be starting to become a thing of the past. Many organisations including ourselves are now adopting the use of ‘virtual help’. This being online support which is readily available for all volunteers. Virtual help makes good use of platforms like YouTube, instant messaging and help forms. Which in short saves the volunteer manager time.

Ageing Population

People are living longer and healthier lives, which isn’t a surprise. People are starting to take a lot better care of themselves by feeling more inclined than ever to live healthier active lifestyles.

Therefore volunteer managers should expect a rise in the number of older volunteers with time and energy to volunteer. Perhaps its time volunteer managers shifted perceptions of the ‘old’ volunteer, and started removing aged based limits on volunteering opportunities. Although people aged 65 and over are 45% more likely to volunteer than any other age group, only 6% of those over 65 actually feel old. Meaning older volunteers are more than happy to take part in more physical volunteering opportunities – if given the opportunities to do so.

A common theme that our customer relations team has found here at TeamKinetic is that. The wording of opportunities can often make volunteers not want to join an opportunity. Volunteer managers should try to be mindful when writing volunteering opportunities, as certain words can make opportunities sound more physically tiring, boring or even more complex than they actually are.

Younger Volunteers

There are small indications that the younger generations are starting to volunteer a lot more than they used to. 70% of 18 – 24-year-olds have reported having volunteered at some point in the last year. Recent interviews held by TeamKinetic and student volunteers help support this statistic, as many students did volunteer in some shape or form. Either to improve their academic profile or just because they wanted to give back to their community and have fun. This increase in younger people volunteering only gives volunteer managers more options and opportunities to attract younger volunteers, who are enthusiastic to help and be apart of a volunteering programme.

Volunteer Led Opportunities

Volunteer-led opportunities involve listening and understanding what your volunteers want to do. It’s a growing trend that organisations are listening more to their staff and their customers. It would only be right to suggest that volunteer managers could do the same. A volunteers feedback could pose to be very useful as they are the ones taking part in the opportunities on a regular basis (on the front line as you may say). Suggesting it might be worth allowing volunteers to take lead on some opportunities, as this could be more impactful or at the very least, given the time to suggest new ideas.

A Question of Flexibility

How much flexibility volunteers have is always going to be a changing factor. Pictured above are some of the many reasons why the average person is soo busy. Considering these in modern volunteer management could mean thinking about running more “one-off opportunities”. which are opportunities that don’t happen on a regular basis (perhaps monthly), allowing time for volunteers to adjust their schedules, making it so they don’t have to commit to a specific time frame every week.

For more information on TeamKinetic volunteer management, visit our website or call us on 0161 914 5757.

Cause of Death: Microsoft Excel Spreadsheets

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On 17th February 2020

In News & Views, Volunteer Management

Phil and his co-workers wanted to manage their volunteers, however, things took a turn for the worst & now Phil and his co-workers are here…

Probably the most annoying platform to manage anything – never mind volunteers. My deepest sympathies are with those who have fallen down the bottomless rabbit hole of endless Excel Spreadsheets, which are over-occupied with volunteers.

Does anyone truly understand Excel?

Few people truly understand all the functionalities of spreadsheets – because there are way too many! Therefore the job is left to one person, who quickly becomes very demotivated and almost consumed by the spreadsheet itself.

Just keep scrolling…

Scroll, after scroll. This is often associated with your current method of managing your volunteers. Finding the volunteer Jack Jones who wants to volunteer at the annual 10K run, couldn’t get any more complicated. However, by having a volunteer management system in place, your job could be a lot easier. Volunteer profiles can be easily searched for across the whole system.

Worry less

When it comes to your volunteers there are a few things that they are guaranteed to ask. Where, when and what. Volunteer management systems worry about all this for you, by giving your volunteers their own profile and portal where they can access all this information and even more.

The nightmare of event planning

You may have noticed Excel isn’t exactly the best for building your events, making the process highly laborious. No template on Excel can simplify all of that! But it doesn’t have to be this way. Volunteer management systems provide a simplified solution to what once seemed a strenuous task. Save your own time and leave your explicit language along with Excel.

Manage volunteers with more confidence

You may be able to encrypt and password-protect the data stored on your Excel Spreadsheets. However, what happens when someone cracks your spreadsheet’s ‘safe password’? Every piece of data is then stolen, this won’t be just your budgets and accounts, this will be the personal data of your volunteers. But you don’t need to take this kind of risk with your volunteer’s data. Volunteer management systems are fully protected and encrypted with the most up-to-date security encryptions and they follow all new GDPR data regulations.

What a volunteer management system should look like:

Simplistic layout
Safe and secure
Easy to navigate around
Reliable
Time-saving, not time-wasting!
An open-ended platform for everyone to access easily.

Consider the simple life and save on the sheets, one personalised and customisable system is all you need. Consider TeamKinetic, we might just be able to help.

You can find TeamKinetic on social media and listen to our 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.

Volunteering at Uni: Not Just a CV Builder

On 20th January 2020

In Community, Education, News & Views

By now, students will be settled into their year at university. Whether you’re in your first or final year, you’ll have already completed seemingly endless amounts of assignments. Now, of course, university isn’t for everyone. However, as someone who has spent two years at university (so far), I can say that it is hard. It’s hard to balance all these new aspects of your life – self-motivated study, meeting new people, house-hunting, food shopping, finding a club that your random mix of mates can all enjoy, cooking, and actually finding the time and summoning the effort to clean your house. Despite this, I’m about to tell you to add volunteering to the mix.

university students, volunteering, student volunteers, volunteer management software, volunteer management system, volunteer management

Now, I’m not going to pretend like the majority of students don’t see volunteering as a CV booster. But these same students then realise that volunteering can offer so much more than a bullet point on a piece of paper. It can offer you essential life skills that you can’t develop anywhere else. The issue is that these benefits aren’t often highlighted by universities. As a result, students may not be getting into volunteering in the first place.

The Benefits of Student Volunteering

Meeting new people

Whether you’ve been at uni for a few years already or you’ve just started this year, it’s never a bad time to meet new people. These people could become your friends, best friends, or even future partners. Even if you never talk to them again at least you’ve met someone you can give an awkward wave to when you pass them in public.

Aside from gaining some mates, volunteering could also be a good opportunity for networking. Sounds strange but you never know who you might meet through volunteer work. Also, in a recent catch-up with El Afzal, she noted that people have contacted her through LinkedIn about her vast volunteer work and offered her potential future work.

Giving back to the community

Let’s face it – the vast majority of us have had a few embarrassing nights as a result of the student lifestyle. What better way to say sorry to our local community for all the drunken shouting and traffic cone theft (yes, it’s a big thing) than to volunteer for a local cause. Whether it’s the classic charity shop work or a local park clean-up, you can give back to the community you’ll be calling home for the next few years.

student volunteer, student volunteering, university volunteers, university volunteering, volunteers, volunteering, volunteer management, reasons to volunteer, volunteer management software, volunteer management system, TeamKinetic, volunteering at uni,

Relieving all that student stress

I don’t mean to scare any prospective students, but university is stressful. It’s all fun and games during fresher’s week but suddenly you’ve been there for two months and are already drowning in assignments and lecture notes you should have somehow organised. Volunteering can be a great way to distance yourself from all the hustle and bustle of university life for a couple of hours a week (or more!) You may be wondering how you’ll fit volunteering into such a busy schedule, but you’re lying if you say you don’t procrastinate for at least a couple hours a day – whether you’re scrolling through social media or binge-watching that new TV show.

Also, research shows that if you volunteer during your student years, you’re likely to continue throughout your life. Wouldn’t it be nice to live a life full of voluntary work? I think it would.

How can TeamKinetic help?

Are you a student looking to get into volunteering? Check with your university’s student union or sports department for any active opportunities. You could also give this blog by The Student Room a read – it includes some helpful information about student volunteering!

Perhaps you work for a university wanting to commit more to student volunteering? This blog might be better for you! Find out how TeamKinetic can work with you to recruit, manage, and retain your student volunteers by visiting our website or calling us on 0161 914 5757.

Whether you’re student or staff, you can find us on social media: Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube. We share and create content suitable for anyone interested in volunteering!

You can also read our other blogs on student volunteering here and here.

Volunteer Firefighters

On 16th January 2020

Many children dream wildly about becoming a firefighter when they’re older, many children would consider this to be their ultimate dream job. It certainly was mine for many years. Sadly, of the many that dream, few actually become firefighters later in life.

However, those who continued to dream heroic fantasies have been continuing them by helping to fight the detrimental fires that have been taking place in Australia.

Becoming a volunteer firefighter in the UK is not well-renowned. But in America and Australia volunteer training is highly extensive, requiring hard work and valiant commitment to the community. Smaller towns and villages in such places rely on volunteer firefighters to respond quickly to incidents, perform firefighting duties, and provide assistance and support to full-time paid firefighters.

Ultimately, ‘volunteering’ means there are no monetary benefits for volunteer firefighters risking their lives. However, many volunteer firefighters are honoured and proud to be able to serve and protect their local communities – which is the greatest reward of all.

Australia

The Australian wildfires are expected each year during the summer, marking it the fire season. Hot and dry conditions permit perfect conditions for a blaze to start. This season is always particularly dangerous proving more so than ever this Australian summer, the worst seen in decades. The last significant wildfires were Black Saturday 2009.

Wildfires have swept across 17.9 million acres of woodland and national parks, also effecting the largest cities Melbourne and Sydney – with the state of New South Wales being the worst struck. A total of 27 people have died and over 480 million animals.

The video above is merely human kindness towards a fellow friendly koala. Many people, like those above, have taken their own actions to help desperate wildlife.

The bushfires are continuing to blaze and challenge the brave and noble volunteer firefighters which are risking their lives to save their country. Many firefighters have been injured and lost homes and their own lives.

The New South Wales Rural Fire Service (NSW RFS) is the largest in the world, with 70,000 members across 2,002 brigades. The NSW RFS has received a spike (five times their usual amount) in applications of people wanting to become volunteer firefighters due to the ongoing events.

The Australian Prime Minister recently announced that volunteer firefighters will receive up to 6,000 Australian dollars if called out to battle blazes for more than 10 days. The Prime Minister said the compensation was necessary so that the NSW fires commissioner was able to continue to call out the volunteer force from their usual jobs – as the bushfires continue.

TeamKinetic volunteer management software

Our thoughts are with those in Australia and those being directly impacted by the fires. Please support The NSW RFS here. These horrific events should not be ignored.

Volunteering: Not Just For Christmas, But Perfect At Christmas?

On 16th December 2019