This is one in a series of posts where I will be discussing the new features and changes we have built in to version 6 of our volunteer management software TeamKinetic.
Although we have always provided the ability to block access to opportunities based on age, there was never any restriction on registering; a new volunteer could be any age.
We wanted to maintain easy access to the opportunities for younger volunteers but also give the administrators some control over what happens to younger volunteers and how they are registered.
In TeamKinetic Version 6, administrators can set the age at which registrations must be verified. If a volunteer registers who is equal to or younger than this age then they will be taken to the age verification screen. Here they are asked to provide the email address of their parent or guardian.
The parent or guardian will receive an email asking them to follow a link to confirm that they give permission for the young person to join the site and access all suitable opportunities.
Until the volunteer has been verified they will not be able to join any opportunities, though they will still be able to search and browse the current opportunities and hopefully be enthused enough to ensure their parent or guardian verifies them as soon as possible!
If you have questions or issues around age verification please feel free to get in touch.
You can find TeamKinetic on social media and listen to our podcast:
This is one in a series of posts where I will be discussing the new features and changes we have built into TeamKinetic Version 6 – a volunteer management system that will make your life easier.
As the size of the events TeamKinetic is being used for have increased, so have the complexities involved in making sure there are enough volunteers for all roles and that they are suitably qualified.
We have introduced a number of new features to aid administrators and providers in choosing their volunteers, such as:
a new experience field for each opportunity
the recording of a volunteer’s movements in and out of sessions on an opportunity.
we have also introduced an entirely new sort of opportunity.
Previously it was always assumed that when a volunteer joined a session they were accepted on that session unless they were told otherwise. For large events, this led to an over-subscription to certain sessions as volunteers could not indicate which sessions they were able to do but were joining the sessions they wanted to do. Now administrators have the ability to set an opportunity to be an application opportunity.
When a volunteer looks at an opportunity that is set to in “application” mode they are informed that they should indicate all the sessions they are able to do. Once the administrator has organised volunteers into each session they can mark that opportunity as confirmed.
At this point, all the volunteers are informed which sessions they have been allocated to. If a volunteer is unable to attend a session the administrator has the history of that session available and can quickly select a volunteer that indicated they could do that session but was not allocated to that session in the first draft.
This is a major new feature that will aid immensely in improving communication between the administrators and the volunteers and reducing the time it takes to even out the available volunteers across an entire event or opportunity.
You can find TeamKinetic on social media and listen to our podcast:
The launch date is still a decade away but preparations are underway for the first human expedition to Mars. Here we explain about the mission, Mars spacecrafts and selecting volunteers to establish a colony on the planet.
From more than 200,000 people who hoped to leave Earth and die on Mars, only 660 remain in the running. They now face a more stringent astronaut selection process. Those who make the final cut earn a seat on the Mars One mission, the first human expedition to Mars – a one-way trip to the red planet.
How will the astronauts be selected?
The next round involves more filmed interviews and group challenges to see how well people work together. The final selection round will follow the candidates as they cope with living in harsh, remote mocked-up Mars habitats. At the end of the process, Mars One wants six groups of four astronauts to train for the mission.
How will Mars One pay for the mission?
The Dutch not-for-profit organisation is raising money any way it can. That means broadcasting rights, sponsorship deals, crowd-funding, donations from philanthropists, and licensing intellectual property rights from inventions made along the way. The first mission, costing $6bn (£4bn), aims to send a spacecraft carrying two men and two women to the planet.
What do they need to do?
It’s all quite complicated. The first humans are not scheduled to blast off for Mars until 2024. But plenty of missions are planned beforehand to do vital groundwork. In 2018, a lander would be sent to the planet as a trial run for technologies that the real mission will need. That will be accompanied by a communications satellite to beam messages back and forth.
In 2020, an “intelligent” rover is sent to Mars, along with a trailer. The rover’s job is to scope out a good landing site, far enough north for the soil to contain a good amount of water, but equatorial enough to get plenty of sunlight. Two years after that, in 2022, six cargo missions head off for Mars. They include another rover, two living units and two life support units. These land near the first rover, which tows them into position and sets up solar panels to power the units. The life support unit is meant to produce a breathable atmosphere in the habitat, 3,000 litres of water, and 120kg of oxygen kept in storage.
How will the astronauts get to Mars?
Mars One will contract a rocket manufacturer to build them a rocket. That could be Lockheed Martin, SpaceX, or another company. In 2024, they will blast the crew’s landing module and their main living quarters for the voyage into Earth’s orbit and dock them together. The crew then launch into Earth orbit themselves, climb into the waiting Mars spacecraft, and head off for their destination.
How do they land?
The Mars lander module detaches from the spacecraft and descends to the surface. Once down, the crew in their Mars suits are picked up by one of the rovers and taken to the habitat. It will take them a good while to acclimatise to the gravity on Mars. Their first tasks are to deploy more solar panels and start their efforts to grow food on Mars.
When do they get fresh company?
Being part of the first human expedition to Mars might be exciting, but soon you’ll want to welcome others. The second Mars One crew is planned for take off in 2026, for arrival the following year. Their own habitats and life-support units are meant to land within weeks of the first crew arriving. To protect the astronauts from the harsh radiation on Mars, the rovers will pile Martian soil on top of the habitats.
You can find TeamKinetic on social media and listen to our podcast:
Volunteers are helping to support hospitals during this time of increased demand. Photograph: Andrew Matthews/PA
Last month the NHS crisis made headlines and it wasn’t a last-minute surprise to some of us in the charity sector. In December I received an email from the local clinical commissioning group, asking for urgent assistance to find volunteers to support the local hospital.
Among other things, they were looking for help to relieve pressure on the hospital being caused by increased demand for services and problems with the delayed discharging of patients. Volunteers were needed not just for “home from hospital” services and transport, but also for directly supporting nursing staff on the hospital’s wards.
Everyone knows that it’s a tough time for the voluntary and community sector. To be honest, it’s a pretty tough time for most people. By running a third-sector infrastructure support organisation, I see the issues every day and many smaller agencies are struggling to keep their show on the road. Although a great deal of important work is delivered across the public sector by volunteers, there are also many paid, highly-skilled specialists in the sector who provide the highest quality services, often in very specialised organisations. Even when volunteers are used to provide support there is still a cost for the organisations they work with.
Volunteers must be properly supported with supervision, management and training, not to mention other overheads such as insurance and safeguarding checks. All the things that go to make up a professional quality service that our communities deserve.
There continues to be a lack of understanding among those in government and service commissioning around the real cost of things when the voluntary sector comes to the rescue when things are difficult. It feels like some see it as a bit of a cut-price Black Friday approach to propping things up.
Four years of reduced funding have had a huge impact on everyone, but our sector has been hit particularly hard. Matters have been made worse by commissioners designing public service contracts in such a way which often prevent smaller, specialist organisations from being able to tender at all. There is now a very real danger that these same organisations that bring so much social value to the wider community may disappear altogether. Depressingly, it is often these same commissioners that are now requesting additional support from our sector to help stem the current NHS crisis.
Of course, the voluntary sector is always there to support the community – that’s the reason why we are so passionate about it and why we are working in it in the first place. But, it is long overdue for the sector to be taken more seriously. Rather than being seen as a merely supplementary amateur resource, there needs to be a recognition of the expert professionalism that exists, the level of activity that is delivered and a realistic understanding of how much it can cost to do what we do.
TeamKinetic are proud to be part of Safer Internet Day. Safer Internet Day takes place in February of each year to promote safer and more responsible use of online technology.
With just under a 1/3 of people aged 11 – 16 saying they have experienced cruel behaviour online we wanted to take this opportunity to offer this advice when using TeamKinetic.
1. Never meet anyone you speak to on the internet on your own, without being very sure they are who they say they are. If you are unsure contact the administrator and they can check for you.
2. Don’t share extra personal information. All the information the Opportunity provider needs is provided by the system.
3. If you feel threatened or unsafe at any time using the Volunteer site, attending an opportunity or about any feedback left about your time Volunteering, contact the administrator immediately, it is confidential and they will listen to your concerns.
4. Always make sure someone knows where you have gone to Volunteer.
If you follow these simple rules we think you should be safe and have a great Volunteer experience, but if you don’t, please tell and we can see what we can do.
Share your support with #Up2Us or #SID2015 this Safer Internet Day.
You can find TeamKinetic on social media and listen to our podcast:
The launch date is still a decade away but preparations are underway for the first human expedition to Mars. Here we explain about the mission, Mars spacecrafts and selecting volunteers to establish a colony on the planet
From more than 200,000 people who hoped to leave Earth and die on Mars, only 660 remain in the running. They now face a more stringent astronaut selection process. Those who make the final cut earn a seat on the Mars One mission, a one-way trip to the red planet.
How will the astronauts be selected?
The next round involves more filmed interviews and group challenges to see how well people work together. The final selection round will follow the candidates as they cope with living in harsh, remote mocked-up Mars habitats. At the end of the process, Mars One wants six groups of four astronauts to train for the mission.
How will Mars One pay for the mission?
The Dutch not-for-profit organisation is raising money any way it can. That means broadcasting rights, sponsorship deals, crowd-funding, donations from philanthropists, and licensing intellectual property rights from inventions made along the way. The first mission, costing $6bn (£4bn), aims to send a spacecraft carrying two men and two women to the planet.
What do they need to do?
It’s all quite complicated. The first humans are not scheduled to blast off for Mars until 2024. But plenty of missions are planned beforehand to do vital groundwork. In 2018, a lander would be sent to the planet as a trial-run for technologies that the real mission will need. That will be accompanied by a communications satellite to beam messages back and forth. In 2020, an “intelligent” rover is sent to Mars, along with a trailer. The rover’s job is to scope out a good landing site, far enough north for the soil to contain a good amount of water, but equatorial enough to get plenty of sunlight. Two years after that, in 2022, six cargo missions head off for Mars. They include another rover, two living units and two life support units. These land near the first rover, which tows them into position and sets up solar panels to power the units. The life support unit is meant to produce a breathable atmosphere in the habitat, 3,000 litres of water, and 120kg of oxygen kept in storage.
Mars One chief executive, Bas Lansdorp, left, announces the launch of astronaut selection for a Mars space mission project, in New York. Mars One is a non-profit organisation that aims to establish a permanent human settlement on Mars.Photograph: Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty Images
How will the astronauts get to Mars?
Mars One will contract a rocket manufacturer to build them a rocket. That could be Lockheed Martin, SpaceX, or another company. In 2024, they will blast the crew’s landing module and their main living quarters for the voyage into Earth’s orbit and dock them together. The crew then launch into Earth orbit themselves, climb into the waiting Mars spacecraft, and head off for their destination.
How do they land?
The Mars lander module detaches from the spacecraft and descends to the surface. Once down, the crew in their Mars suits are picked up by one of the rovers and taken to the habitat. It will take them a good while to acclimatise to the gravity on Mars. Their first tasks are to deploy more solar panels, and start their efforts to grow food on Mars.
When do they get fresh company?
The second Mars One crew is planned for take off in 2026, for arrival the following year. Their own habitats and life-support units are meant to land within weeks of the first crew arriving. To protect the astronauts from the harsh radiation on Mars, the rovers will pile Martian soil on top of the habitats.
It is with great pleasure that TeamKinetic can announce they are now the volunteer platform for Greater Sport. Working with the County Sports Partnership to extend our hugely successful work with Manchester City Council. Greater Sport requested a volunteer service that offered the people of Greater Manchester more choice whilst allowing the Local Authorities a level of local administration and control.
As a County Sports Partnership, Greater Sport had identified how successful Manchester City Council had been in recruiting and deploying Volunteers both for their clubs and their major events program. They identified how as a CSP area volunteers could benefit from seamless sharing of volunteer opportunities across the Local Authorities whilst also providing the level of local insight demanded by the ten local authorities of Greater Manchester.
This did pose a number of major technical challenges, as each Local Authority had different requirements and were able to offer significantly different levels of support to their volunteers. TeamKinetic worked closely with GreaterSport to develop a workable solution and we are proud to announce our Pilot volunteer platform project is up and running with plans for a much wider rollout early into the new year.
It is ours and Greater Sport’s belief, that this new volunteer platform will allow the generous and sports-mad people of Greater Manchester to access some of the finest events and clubs the UK has to offer.
You can find TeamKinetic on social media and listen to our podcast:
SMS marketing is considered an electronic form of communication. That means its use is governed by the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations. It may sound scary, but it really isn’t that hard to understand. However, I thought it worthwhile to go over the basics of the EC Directive to help you better understand what you can and can’t do with your SMS marketing.
In the warnings issued by the ICO, several key paragraphs from the EC Directive are quoted. They basically say that no one can send unsolicited messages to any individual without prior consent. It then goes on to state three criteria used to determine what consent means (from Regulation 22):
“A person may send or instigate the sending of electronic mail for the purposes of direct marketing where –
(a) that person has obtained the contact details of the recipient of that electronic mail in the course of the sale or negotiations for the sale of a product or service to that recipient;
(b) the direct marketing is in respect of that person’s similar products and services only; and
(c) the recipient has been given a simple means of refusing (free of charge except for the costs of the transmission of the refusal) the use of his contact details for the purposes of such direct marketing, at the time that the details were initially collected, and where he did not initially refuse the use of details, at the time of each subsequent communication.”
That is honestly a mouthful of words, but very important ones. Here’s a simple interpretation you can take when dealing with your Volunteers.
As long as you ask for consent when signing a Volunteer up to the TeamKinetic system, which you do as part of the terms and conditions. you can send that Volunteer text messages that are related to the service the volunteer undertakes. For example, other voluntary opportunities and non-voluntary information that is similar to the Volunteering the person has undertaken. This could be a training course that is suitably matched to the volunteer’s area of voluntary experience, or other services as long as they are related to the Volunteering.
You can not send SMS messages about unrelated services or products. For example, the opportunity to buy a holiday or book cinema tickets unless that was specifically related to the voluntary opportunity the volunteer signed up to.
Part c is important, as you must make it simple for the Volunteer to opt out of any future communications if they wish.
Following these rules will keep you inside the law and hopefully will keep your Volunteers happy. If you have any stories of good/bad practice examples of how to use SMS messaging to increase Volunteer retention and recruitment please feel free to send them to us.
You can find TeamKinetic on social media and listen to our podcast:
This article will be the first in a series where we look at the technologies available to volunteer managers. With more ways to communicate becoming available almost every day, we want to look at your options and try and advise which will provide the most bang for your buck.
A quick look at the technologies available to volunteer managers and your volunteers tells you there are more options available than any one person can reasonably manage, facebook, Blogging, twitter, SMS, Instagram, YouTube, Vine and the list goes on. So how do you select the technologies that suit your Volunteers and how do you use them to maximum effect?
Remove Barriers!
Providing an environment for Volunteers with as few barriers to entry as you can, is the best place to start. Technology can be used to simplify and improve the Volunteering experience whilst providing a platform for marketing, advocacy and an open marketplace of opportunity. It must also be considered that at its worst, technology, can be the biggest barrier to entry due to poor design, ineffective use of data and creating an environment that does not allow Volunteers flexibility and room to grow and develop.
So what lessons have we learnt over the last 8 years of building Websites for Volunteer Organisations?
Can you remember what you did before Google? How did people get anything done? Websites are ubiquitous now and peoples expectations from websites are only being set higher and higher. Expectation is that most tasks can be undertaken on the web when we need to do them, from On-line banking, paying your council tax or ordering a pizza.
From a volunteer’s point of view, what do they need from a website?
We have found through extensive Volunteer research over the last 6 years that the number 1 requirement for Volunteers is simplicity of use. If the website is difficult to join, offers poor search results and prevents Volunteers from getting on to Volunteer opportunities with a single visit to the site, the chances are it will result in lost Volunteer Engagement.
Clean Web layout for Volunteers
You may not be in a position to use a system such as TeamKinetic, so our advice is to build a website with the Volunteer as your customer and always keep your customer in mind. Make sure it’s easy for your Volunteer to find opportunities that suit their interests and finally look at how the Volunteer goes from impulse to Volunteer to actually arriving at that first opportunity, examine that process and look at how you can remove and reduce the various barriers they will face. Don’t make your website an additional barrier.
Implementing a VMS?
If you are lucky enough to be able to look at Websites such as TeamKinetic or some of the other systems that are available on the market currently then bear in mind the following checklist:
Does your volunteer get clear advice and instruction at each stage of the process? (reminders and instructions via Text, e-mail and in their online profile.
Is there someone the Volunteer can contact if they have questions?
Does the system collect feedback on the Volunteer experience that can be used to further develop the opportunities on offer?
and most importantly: is the website easy to use for Volunteers?
If you can find a website solution that meets the criteria outlined above we think you will enjoy success with your Volunteer programme. Over the next few weeks, we will explore some of the other channels of communication, services and technologies that we think you can leverage to enhance and develop the experience for your Volunteers.
If you have any questions or suggestions about technologies available to volunteer managers and how they can make a difference please feel free to get in touch on the details below as we would love to hear what you think.
If you would like to find out more about TeamKinetic then please get in touch and arrange a demo.
I look forward to your suggestions.
You can find TeamKinetic on social media and listen to our podcast:
