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At the recent TeamKinetic Conference, we were treated to an engaging session led by Katherine Perrin, a freelancer with a rich background in charity management and social impact consultancy. Katherine’s passion for bringing fresh approaches to group dynamics and conversations made her session stand out, with a spotlight on the unique facilitation method known as LEGO Serious Play.

You can catch the session below:

Let’s take a closer look at how Katherine used creativity and play to unlock deeper insights in her workshop and how this approach can transform how we communicate and collaborate.

Meet Katherine Perrin

With nearly 15 years of experience in charity management, Katherine’s career has included a range of roles. From working on corporate projects to leading volunteer management and senior roles.

Her passion revolves around helping people and organisations have better, more meaningful conversations that lead to real impact. Katherine’s certification in LEGO Serious Play perfectly complements her wider work. She’s also an Action Learning Set lead, mentor, and certified coach. All these roles focus on supporting those working in the social good space to achieve their best results.

Wait, what is LEGO Serious Play?

For those unfamiliar with it, LEGO Serious Play is a facilitation technique. It uses LEGO bricks to help people express ideas, thoughts, and emotions through building. It’s not just playing with toys. The method encourages participants to use metaphors and storytelling as they build models. This offers a different, often deeper, way to communicate.

By engaging both hands and mind, LEGO Serious Play unlocks creative potential and makes it easier for participants to share their thoughts. Even thoughts that might be difficult to articulate verbally. The method is used in a variety of situations. From business strategy meetings to team-building workshops, and even problem-solving sessions. It’s all about breaking down barriers and enhancing engagement, and Katherine brought this concept to life during her session.

Using metaphor to open up

The session kicked off with an interactive exercise that got everyone thinking outside the box.

It was playful, but it also illustrated how using metaphors can encourage creativity and draw out more personal, thoughtful responses.

Katherine’s goal was to show how using simple, playful prompts can help people open up and engage more fully. And it worked. Attendees immediately connected with the exercise, sharing insights that went far beyond the typical “How are you?” responses.

Thinking deeper with LEGO blocks

What was clear throughout the session was Katherine’s enthusiasm for bringing fun into the workplace. But this doesn’t come at the expense of productivity – rather, it enhances it. By using facilitation methods like LEGO Serious Play, people may feel more comfortable expressing themselves and collaborating effectively.

Though LEGO Serious Play, is usually an in-person experience, Katherine expertly adapted it to the virtual setting. Allowing all attendees to participate from home with their own LEGO bricks.

She asked participants to build something that represented their answer to the question:

What strength do you bring to the team and why, and what’s your area for improvement?

There were some really great builds shown but unfortunately, these aren’t reflected in the recording, so if you did build something and take a picture, please send it our way!

Ovrall, Katherine emphasised the genuine, unforced joy that LEGO Serious Play can bring into professional spaces. While her session at the conference was on the lighter side, she explained that the method can easily adapt to tackle more serious topics, making it an incredibly versatile tool.

For Katherine, it’s all about choosing the right tools and metaphors to create a welcoming vibe and a comfortable atmosphere, no matter the focus of the session.

Final Thoughts

Katherine Perrin’s session at the TeamKinetic Conference showcased just how powerful innovative facilitation methods can be. By blending creativity with strategic communication, she demonstrated how tools like LEGO Serious Play can change the way we interact with one another in group settings.

It’s a reminder that bringing a little play into serious processes isn’t a bad thing! It can lead to more meaningful and impactful conversations, ultimately helping teams work better together.

Now, before we close off, we have to ask. Which sheep are you?

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

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Have you enjoyed using TeamKinetic? If you could leave us a review on Capterra, we’d really appreciate it!

TeamKinetic Update – 2.5.1 Release

By Rolf Herbert

On 24th October 2024

In News & Views

Hi all and welcome to another stuffed full of goodness, TeamKinetic update.

We’ve got some big changes in the pipeline regarding customising workflows. These are going to take some time to realise properly, so we wanted to get some of the smaller things done and dusted so you don’t have to wait.

Catch the full summary of changes made in this TeamKinetic update via this video, or tuck into all the details in full below.

Data Retention Options and Rules

In this TeamKinetic update, there are two new options that work well with the auto-delete options to handle your data retention needs.

You can now select the level of data you wish to retain when any volunteer is removed, by an admin, by themselves or via the auto-deletion of inactive volunteers.

The first level only saves the volunteer’s hours, anonymously in the deleted hours total that you see in reports. This has been the only available level of data retention to this point.

The second level adds the volunteer’s essential profile information; name, email address etc. to the data that is retained.

Level three adds the volunteer’s opportunity and session history, so you can trace what sessions they were on and where.

Level four adds their email log.

All this information is searchable and viewable in your dashboard and you’ll have the option to expunge data or to extend the retention period, anytime you wish.

The second option sets a data retention period. Once any retained data is older than this it will be automatically expunged.

File Upload Custom Registration Question

A super useful new field type that you can add to the volunteer registration page. Great if there are documents you need from the volunteer as part of their registration.

The uploaded files are stored in the volunteer’s ID section of their document storage. The files are given the label short name you define when creating the custom question and locked to prevent deletion by the volunteer.

File upload questions only appear on the registration page and are not editable from the volunteer’s dashboard.

Text Only Custom Registration Question

If you want to provide more information about any step in the registration process you can now add a text-only section.

The text displayed will be the label you define when setting up the question.

Just like the registration questions these only appear on the actual registration page.

Character Limits on Single and Multiline Text Entry Custom Questions

Add a maximum number of characters that volunteers and providers can enter in these fields.

The limit will prevent users from entering any characters beyond the limit. On average an English word has 4.7 characters, so divide the character count by 5 to get a rough estimate of word count.

The limit defaults to 2500 or 500 words.

User Controllable Cookie Consent

Remember all those annoying cookie consent pop-ups; they’re back!

We were hopeful that these might disappear with our exit from the EU but they haven’t gone anywhere yet.

It is now a requirement to allow users to opt out of various sorts of cookies, like the Google Analytics cookies, as well as the required non-tracking ones for logins etc.

We’ll be adding our pop-up to all our customer sites throughout this release. Your users should only see this annoyance once and then their preferences are set on that machine.

It’s a necessary evil I’m afraid 😞

Easier to Complete Address Lookup

We’ve had persistent issues with users entering their UK postcode but not hitting the search button to select their full address. This stops them from being able to complete the registration but it was not clear to the user why.

Now the search box is triggered immediately that the postcode box is left, so even if they miss this entirely, when they come to hit the registration button it will be clear which fields need to be completed.

Weekly Email Changes

If you have opps that have longer than seven days between being added and being authorised, there is a chance that they will never appear in the weekly email as we used the creation date to choose which opps to show but they still had to be authorised.

If an opp was created on 01/01/2024 but was not authorised till 10/01/2024 it would not be valid for the weekly email till it was authorised on the 10th, but by then its created date was already more than seven days past so it wouldn’t appear.

We now ignore the creation date when selecting the opps for the weekly email which avoids this issue.

Thanks for reading, we hope you enjoy this latest TeamKinetic update.

As always, remember you can shape our future updates by submitting feature requests.
Just go to Help & Support → Support Tickets → Open New Ticket → Ticket Type: New Feature Request

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

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Have you enjoyed using TeamKinetic? If you could leave us a review on Capterra, we’d really appreciate it!

Advancing volunteering in complex organisational systems

By Alex Evans

On 15th October 2024

In Events and Conferences, Volunteer Management

Insights from Dr Helen Timbrell

In a world where volunteering is becoming increasingly crucial to organisational success, mastering the art of volunteer management is more important than ever. In our recent conference, we invited Helen Timbrell to come and explore this fascinating topic with our attendees. You can catch the session below:

Advancing volunteering in complex organisational systems with Helen Timbrell

A leading consultant, researcher, and coach in strategic volunteer development, Helen has extensive experience working with organisations like Citizens Advice and the National Trust. She offers a unique perspective on how organisations can harness the transformative power of volunteers to drive systemic growth and cultural change.

Being a volunteer manager is like being… Taylor Swift?

Believe it or not, Helen Timbrell drew a brilliant parallel between Taylor Swift’s relentless tour schedule and the role of volunteer managers. Just like Swift, volunteer managers are expected to keep showing up, night after night, no matter what challenges they’ve faced before. Helen pointed out that the job can feel endless and exhausting, with constant expectations from others.

She noted that being a volunteer manager, like being a solo performer, can feel quite exposing, even if you have a team behind you. You’re often the one in the spotlight, carrying the weight of responsibility. But, when done well, both are great at building a sense of community and recognising the contributions of those around them.

Helen also compared the criticism faced by both Taylor Swift and volunteer managers, often unrelated to the real issues at hand.

The Limits of Responsibility

Volunteer managers, she explained, are often asked to solve problems that aren’t actually about volunteering. She gave the example of an organisation worried that increasing the number of volunteers might make staff feel undervalued. While this was framed as a volunteering issue, Helen pointed out that the real problem lay in organisational culture and staff recognition.

“Problems” that “show up” in volunteering are often not about volunteering or caused by volunteering. However, leaders of volunteers recruitment are often asked to “solve” those problems.

Similarly, she discussed how the lack of diversity in volunteer teams is often seen as the responsibility of volunteer managers. In reality, it’s tied to broader issues around equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) within the organisation. Helen stressed that these are systemic challenges that can’t be tackled by volunteer leaders alone.

Focusing on the Right Priorities

Do you find yourself getting drawn into surface-level, tactical tasks that can divert attention from more significant, long-term strategic work? Often, volunteer managers are asked to address highly visible issues that seem urgent but don’t lead to sustainable change. Helen encouraged everyone to step back and consider where their time and energy would have the most meaningful impact. Don’t get sidetracked by problems that don’t require your direct involvement.

Advancing volunteering in complex organisational systems

Recognising the Bigger Picture

Helen encouraged us to think of ourselves not just as volunteer managers, but as organisational development specialists. Using the metaphor of a “telescope”, she described how your perspective should be shifted. Instead of narrowly focusing on volunteering, take a broader look at how the entire organisation’s culture impacts volunteering. By doing this, you can influence positive change on a larger scale.

Helen also introduced the concept of “less sponge, more mirror”. A handy way to say that you shouldn’t absorb all the problems yourself. Instead, reflect them back to the organisation and involve others in finding solutions.

Protecting your Health and Well-being

The pressures of volunteer management can be overwhelming. It’s easy to take on too much, especially when faced with high expectations and limited resources. Helen shared her experience of feeling personally responsible for solving organisational challenges during her time at the National Trust. She emphasised that it’s crucial to set boundaries and recognise what’s within your control.

So what next?

Helen’s session was a call to rethink the way volunteer managers approach challenges. Shift your focus from tactical fixes to strategic influence. Build partnerships across organisations, and recognise your limits. Protect your own well-being while also creating more sustainable, impactful change.

It was an inspiring reminder that while volunteer management is tough, you don’t have to tackle it all alone. You can lead by fostering collaboration and focusing on what really matters.

We encourage you all to explore the additional resources provided below and think about how they can help you in your career. By embracing these insights and strategies, you can rethink your approach to volunteer management, ensuring a thriving and impactful volunteer programme.

Useful resources

Blog: What is Organizational Development? A Complete Guide
Factsheet: Organisation Development
Book: Organization Development: A Practitioner’s Guide for OD and HR
Roffey Park Training: Organisational Development Programmes
HULT/EF Training: Organizational Development
ODN Europe Network
The OD Network
CIPD Podcast Episodes:
Handling organisation development effectively
A new dawn for OD
At Work with The Ready Podcast

Advancing volunteering in complex organisational systems with Dr Helen Timbrell at the TeamKinetic Conference 2024

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

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Have you enjoyed using TeamKinetic? If you could leave us a review on Capterra, we’d really appreciate it!

TeamTalk: Season 3, Episode 5 – Alan Stevenson

By Alex Evans

On 8th October 2024

In News & Views, TeamTalk Podcast

Welcome back to Season 3 of our TeamTalk Podcast! This season, we are talking to thought leaders, customers and stakeholders from the world of volunteer management as we dive deeper into the world of volunteering.

In this TeamTalk episode, Alan Stevenson (CEO of Volunteer Scotland) joins us to share his extraordinary career journey and the significance of volunteering in today’s world.

From engineering and international marketing to founding a social media consultancy and ultimately leading Volunteers Scotland, Alan’s story is a testament to the power of saying “yes” to new opportunities. He dives into finding purpose in work and the profound satisfaction that comes from making a difference in people’s lives.

Listen now:

Alan’s Journey

He started his career as a mechanical and electrical engineer on oil rigs and in refineries. Later, he earned a master’s degree in international marketing, leading him into technology and business strategy.

In the early 2000s, Alan co-founded one of Scotland’s first social media consultancies, which eventually brought him to Volunteer Scotland. Initially a consultant, he shaped their digital strategy and brand, taking on roles such as Digital Director and IT Manager before becoming CEO.

Initially a consultant, he shaped their digital strategy and brand, taking on roles such as Digital Director and IT Manager before becoming CEO.

Alan has been instrumental in developing the Volunteer Action Plan, a strategy involving over 130 stakeholders to enhance engagement, influence policies, and create inclusive volunteering spaces. Under his leadership, Volunteer Scotland has successfully navigated government funding and strategic collaborations.

Alan’s career journey, from engineering to volunteer leadership, highlights his commitment to purpose-driven work and community engagement.

Purpose, Impact, and the Future of Volunteer Scotland

In this episode, Chris, Imo and Alan explore the transformative initiatives and strategic shifts within Volunteer Scotland, especially post-COVID-19, including the Volunteer Action Plan.

Alan explains the collaborative process that brought together over 130 stakeholders to shape actionable goals aimed at enhancing lifelong engagement, influencing policies, recognising contributions, and creating inclusive spaces for volunteering. Managing diverse working groups and the importance of co-creation and adaptability in driving these efforts are key themes.

In a broader discussion, they tackled the complex relationship between government funding and the social and economic impacts of volunteering in Scotland. Alan emphasised the need for flexible, inclusive approaches that encourage community participation without becoming overly formalized.

They also reflect on the importance of centralised services like the Volunteer Scotland website and the necessity of protecting the infrastructure supporting volunteering initiatives. Alan’s personal insights shed light on the integral role of volunteering in society and the ongoing efforts to nurture this invaluable resource.

Listen Now

Listen now to a conversation that not only provides inspiration, but delivers practical insights into the world of social impact and professional coaching.

Catch the episode on Spotify now.

Enjoyed this episode? Why not listen to more TeamTalk? You can find more episodes including chats with Rob Jackson, AVM and Sport England wherever you get your podcasts.

If you have any topic or guest requests let us know!

You can find TeamKinetic on social media:

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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.

TeamTalk: Season 3, Episode 4 – Katherine Perrin

By Alex Evans

On 29th August 2024

In News & Views, TeamTalk Podcast

In this TeamTalk episode, we were joined by Katherine Perrin. Katherine is a Social Impact Consultant specialising in LEGO®SeriousPlay® – a unique, tactile way of exploring topics. The method encourages people to use metaphor – using the LEGO bricks to build models that represent their thoughts and ideas.

Katherine’s Journey

How do you transform a career from local government service to making a significant impact in the voluntary sector? Katherine Perrin, our guest for episode four, shares her “squiggly path” career journey. From working in local government to becoming a certified coach, facilitator, and freelance social impact consultant.

Katherine recalls her experiences at a council for voluntary service and a hospice, revealing the profound personal growth and life-changing insights gained from these roles. Discover how she navigated the bold transition to self-employment, balancing purpose and passion while overcoming challenges.

Katherine also dives into her experience balancing a fulfilling career and personal life within the voluntary sector. We discuss the practicalities of maintaining a work-life balance in a field driven by passion, the struggle against imposter syndrome, and the importance of recognising your own value.

Katherine sheds light on the appeal of self-employment, from the flexibility it offers to the opportunities for collaboration with multiple organisations. In addition, she explains what it truly means to be a coach and facilitator in today’s ever-evolving job landscape as well as the satisfaction derived from witnessing client growth.

In the episode, we unravel the complexities of measuring social impact and how innovative methodologies, like LEGO Serious Play, are transforming discussions and problem-solving sessions.

Katherine highlights the importance of transparent social impact measurement and the challenges faced by organisations in this space. We also touch on the pressing issues of funding and sustainability within the voluntary sector, emphasising the necessity for long-term, trust-based funding relationships.

Listen Now

Listen now to a conversation that not only provides inspiration, but delivers practical insights into the world of social impact and professional coaching.

Catch the episode on Spotify and all other podcast streaming platforms:

Enjoyed this episode? Why not listen to more TeamTalk? You can find more episodes including chats with Rob Jackson, AVM and Sport England wherever you get your podcasts.

If you have any topic or guest requests let us know!

You can find TeamKinetic on social media:

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 2024 Conference

By Alex Evans

On 27th August 2024

In Events and Conferences, News & Views

The TeamKinetic Conference will take place on Wednesday the 25th September. We’ll be bringing together voices from across the third sector to discuss the latest hot topics from the world of volunteer management. You can get tickets now for just £10!

We have a great lineup of speakers for you, just click any name to find out more!

Dr Helen Timbrell: People and Organisational Development Consultant

Katherine Perrin: Social Impact Consultant

Liverpool City Region Panel

Janet Lewis-Jones: Investing in Volunteers Assessor

Claire Feeney: Senior Web Analyst at EMCode

Gethyn Williams: Non-Profit Development

The Agenda

(Subject to change)

Speakers

Dr Helen Timbrell

People and Organisational Development Consultant

The challenges we experience when looking to grow and develop volunteering within organisations are rarely “just” about volunteering, and yet often colleagues and leaders look to us as volunteering teams to “solve” these wider problems. In this session, Helen will reflect on her experience working in and consulting with organisations, and explore how we might get better at identifying and working through the wider system issues that might get in our way. Helen will advocate for volunteering leaders to take an organisational development perspective to their work and share some of the advantages of doing so.

Helen is a consultant, researcher and coach with a specialisation in strategic volunteering development and supporting volunteering leaders. Clients include Citizens Advice, Cats Protection, Scouts Association, Dogs Trust and SSAFA. Helen previously held the roles of Director of People and Organisational Development at Samaritans and Versus Arthritis. Prior to this, she was Director of Volunteering and Participation at the National Trust.

Helen’s PhD explored geographical variations in volunteering. In 2020 she published “What the bloody hell are you doing here?” research exploring the experiences of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic volunteers in four organisations. She has an MBA, is a chartered member of the CIPD and holds an MSc in Coaching and Behavioural Change.

Find out more on Helen’s website and connect with her on LinkedIn.

Katherine Perrin

Social Impact Consultant

LEGO®SeriousPlay® is a unique, tactile way of exploring topics. The method encourages people to use metaphor – using the LEGO® bricks to build models that represent their thoughts and ideas. Highly accessible, democratic and gently playful, it’s a surprisingly powerful way to facilitate deep conversations and gain new insights on key issues. Its flexibility is one of its greatest strengths – you can use it for team-building and personal exploration, through to vision and values, strategy and impact.

Katherine brings nearly 15 years of charity management experience across corporate projects and operational/senior management roles (including volunteer management). She has a passion for supporting individuals and organisations to have better conversations and deliver greater impact. Her certification in the LEGO®SeriousPlay® method is the perfect complement to her wider work in facilitation, as well as being an Action Learning Set lead, mentor and certified coach in the for-social-good space.

Visit Katherine’s website, and connect with her on LinkedIn.

You can also listen to the podcast episode we recorded with her here!

Liverpool City Region Panel

Chris will host an exciting panel discussion with various key figures from our partnership across the Liverpool City Region. Claire Redford-Kerr and Lauren Jones will join us to discuss the impact of technology in enhancing collaboration between volunteer centres across Liverpool.

The Liverpool City Region Volunteering Orbit, powered by TeamKinetic, is a central place to showcase voluntary opportunities across the LCR, managed by the Volunteer Centres across Halton & St Helens, Knowsley, Liverpool, Sefton and Wirral.

Lauren Jones

Lauren serves as the Volunteer Centre Coordinator at Volunteer Centre Sefton (VCS). The Centre plays a crucial role in supporting the sector with all aspects of volunteering and collaborates closely with partners and other CVS organisations across the Liverpool City Region to promote and sustain volunteering in the area.

With over twelve years of professional experience in the sector, primarily as a Volunteer Coordinator, Lauren has been in her current role for two years. She is passionate about assisting organisations with volunteer infrastructure and is dedicated to continually enhancing the Centre’s offerings. On a personal level, Lauren has been involved in various forms of volunteering and fundraising since childhood. She currently volunteers with her Miniature Shetland therapy pony, Squirrel.

Claire Redford-Kerr

Claire is the Place-based Lead for Halton at Halton & St Helens Voluntary and Community Action. She leads on volunteering across the organisation, providing guidance and support to staff involved in place-based project delivery. Claire plays a key role in shaping local priorities by serving on strategic boards, partnerships, and networks within the Halton area.

Janet Lewis-Jones

Investing in Volunteers Assessor

Janet’s session will explore the importance of enhancing volunteers’ experiences through good practice. It will look at everything, from recruitment to exit, using the Investing in Volunteers framework and accreditation journey.

Investing in Volunteers (IiV) is the quality standard for all volunteer-involving organisations. It aims to improve the quality of the volunteering experience and to ensure organisations acknowledge the contribution made by volunteers.

IiV is a development tool that uses a quality framework to demonstrate best practice in volunteer involvement and management. The process will support you and your organisation with the development of your volunteer programme and highlight the effectiveness of your work with volunteers.

Details of how you can go through the accredited journey as well as information on the benefits of achieving IiV status can be found at Home – Investing in Volunteers

Janet Lewis-Jones has extensive experience in the criminal justice sector and with non-profit organisations. She worked briefly as a psychologist in the prison service before spending nearly two decades with a national charity, where she became the National Director of Operations, managing contracts worth over £12 million, 450 staff, and 2000 volunteers.

Since becoming a freelancer in 2004, Janet has advised and assessed various quality standards for not-for-profit organisations. She is a Registered Assessor for the matrix Standard, an Assessor and Lead Assessor for the Investing in Volunteers Standard, and has worked with the Volunteer Centre Quality Assurance (VCQA) and UK Community Foundations (UKCF) quality standards. Janet also holds an SFEDI-accredited Level 5 Certificate in assessment processes and practices.

Claire Feeney

Senior Web Analyst at EM Code

Claire will present an introductory session on Google Analytics 4 (GA4), focusing on how organisations and charities can leverage GA4 to gain deeper insights into volunteer engagement, identify popular content, and collect actionable data. This session is designed to equip volunteer managers with the knowledge needed to enhance their strategies and improve their overall volunteer management through insight leveraged from GA4.

Addressing the current challenges facing the third sector, including declining donations and volunteer numbers, Claire will help audiences to understand how GA4 can be used to gather critical data that can inform recruitment and engagement efforts.

Find out more about EMCode.

Gethyn Williams

Non-Profit Development

TeamKinetic’s new Digital in Volunteering Toolkit, developed with AVM members, is about to be launched. In this session, you’ll get an advanced look at its content and structure, as well as an overview of the key insights and points of learning for Volunteer Managers gained through its production. The purpose of the toolkit is to help Volunteer Managers adopt the digital tools and approaches that will best serve their needs, supporting a ‘growth mindset’ powered by digital innovation.

Gethyn provides strategic and operational support services to charities and non-profit organisations, helping them tackle challenges in order to grow and thrive. He has twenty years experience across the UK non-profit sector.

Find out more about Gethyn on his website, and connect with him on LinkedIn.

Stay tuned for more information regarding our speakers and agenda! But in the meantime..

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

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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 2.5.1 Minor Release

By Rolf Herbert

On 19th August 2024

In Press Releases, TeamKinetic Features, Technical Updates

The TeamKinetic 2.5.1 Minor Release is complete and some of you will have already spotted the new stuff!

Reporting Page Speed Improvements

The reporting page is grabbing ever more data for more reports over longer periods. We’d already noticed some slowdowns and some customers had opened support tickets to report load time of 10 plus seconds. We needed to fix that!

We have rewritten some of the queries that fetch the data to make them snappier
Delayed the fetching of some data until you open the relevant section
Fetched the all time and date limited stats after the page has loaded so it won’t block you looking at other reports

It looks like this when you first load the page and the stats will drop in shortly.

The page will load in less than 4 seconds now for even our largest data customers.

New Help and Info for the Custom App

For our admins that have got their own branded app in the Play and iOS stores, we have added a few areas to help them manage the new app.

In the Super Admin > Setup > Custom App section you’ll find all the information you need to explore and communicate to your users about your new all. It contains QR codes, links to the app and a large version of your app icon.

If you want to find out how many people are using the app, registering via the app and joining sessions via the app we’ve got you covered with a new section in the reporting page.

The little tooltips will let you know how each stat is calculated and what it means and the figures are limited to the dates you choose on the reporting page.

Mobile App Download Prompts

We’ve now reinstigated the screen overlay prompts for volunteers who access their dashboard on a small screen to download the mobile app.

If you have switched up to the custom branded app, then the links and QR Codes adjust accordingly.

There is also a permanent notification in the footer, reminding users they can use the native mobile app.

Improved Volunteer Password Reset

After working through the process with the Wildlife Trust (thanks Jake) that had lot of volunteers to import and on-board, we spotted a few places where the process wasn’t as clear and simple as it could be, so we’ve made these changes

A clear message if the reset token (from an old email) a volunteer is trying to use is expired or bad. This appears before they try to reset their password; it used to appear afterwards and so some volunteers missed it and thought they had reset their password successfully.
Suppose a volunteer resets multiple times in a short period and the existing token is still valid. In that case, the token is not reset and a new email is sent with the same token as included in previous emails. This stops that reset loop of doom where a volunteer uses the reset link and an email is sent, but they don’t receive the email quickly enough, or hit the reset link again by accident. This would result in multiple emails with different reset tokens only the latest of which would work.
If a reset token is not valid the volunteer has only the option of sending the reset email again, so if they miss the fail message they can’t try to login, which would be frustrating as it wouldn’t work yet
Changed the wording of some of the messaging to make it clearer

All the changes together lead to a more intuitive process and we’ve been logging the outcomes for a while and we are getting far fewer issues.

Email Notification of Deleted Volunteer

Volunteers can remove themselves from your database, an important ability to fulfil your GDPR responsibilities. Previously, although the hours were anonymised and retained, the admins would have no idea that a volunteer had removed themselves.

We’ve added an email notification to the main admin which will tell them which volunteer and email address has been removed.

This clears the path to a future update that will allow admins to pick the level of detail they wish to retain when a volunteer is removed. Keep an eye out for that update.

Volunteer Registration Form Improvements

We’ve added some new messaging and prompts to aid volunteers in completing the location section, which has been an issue for some.

Volunteers cannot proceed when entering a UK postcode until they have hit the search button and selected an address from those available.

This will help those volunteers who find they cannot proceed but don’t know why.

Session Number Filter

Added a session number filter to the volunteer search so you can filter your volunteers by the number of sessions they have joined in addition to the existing filters for number of opportunities and hours logged.

Length of Service Added to Volunteer Search

Just a little something that might help, next to the registration date for volunteers is a year and months since registration figure so you can quickly see how long they have been volunteering.

New Volunteer Search Filters

You can now filter by;

volunteers that have never logged in (imported but not logged in)
volunteers awaiting parental consent (remember you can resend the parental consent email and update the parental email from the volunteer management page)
Expiry date of qualifications
Date a volunteer last applied for an opportunity

We add filters to this area regularly so it is always worth a quick scan down the filter list occassionally.

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

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

Accessibility Statement

By Rolf Herbert

On 15th August 2024

In TeamKinetic Best Practice, Technical Updates

Our Commitment to Accessibility

At TeamKinetic, we are committed to ensuring our software platform is accessible to all users, regardless of their abilities or disabilities. We strive to follow best practices and standards to provide an inclusive user experience that caters to diverse needs.

Accessibility Features

We have implemented several features on our website to enhance accessibility, including but not limited to:

Keyboard Navigation: Users can navigate through the website using a keyboard, without the need for a mouse.
Screen Reader Compatibility: Our content is designed to be compatible with screen reading software, enabling visually impaired users to access information.
Text Alternatives: We provide text alternatives for non-text content to ensure that all users can understand the information presented.
Consistent Layout: Our website follows a consistent layout and design to facilitate ease of use and navigation.

Limitations and Areas for Improvement

Despite our best efforts, there may be instances where certain aspects of the website are not fully accessible. This may occur due to:

Third-Party Integrations: Some sections of our website may include third-party tools or plugins that we do not have full control over. These may not meet our accessibility standards.
Technological Constraints: Rapid technological changes may sometimes present challenges that affect our ability to provide fully accessible experiences.
Design Trade-offs: Balancing aesthetic design and functionality can occasionally impact the accessibility of certain elements.

Feedback and Assistance

We value feedback from our users and continually seek to improve the accessibility of our website. If you encounter any accessibility barriers or have suggestions for improvement, contact us at info@teamkinetic.co.uk.

Contact Us

For any assistance or to report an accessibility issue, please reach out to our support team:

Email: info@teamkinetic.co.uk

We appreciate your patience and understanding as we work to improve the accessibility of our platform. Thank you for helping us create a more inclusive environment for all users.

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Meet Katherine Perrin

Wait, what is LEGO Serious Play?

Using metaphor to open up

Thinking deeper with LEGO blocks

Final Thoughts

Data Retention Options and Rules

File Upload Custom Registration Question

Text Only Custom Registration Question

Character Limits on Single and Multiline Text Entry Custom Questions

User Controllable Cookie Consent

Easier to Complete Address Lookup

Weekly Email Changes

Insights from Dr Helen Timbrell

Being a volunteer manager is like being… Taylor Swift?

The Limits of Responsibility

Focusing on the Right Priorities

Recognising the Bigger Picture

Protecting your Health and Well-being

So what next?

Useful resources

Alan’s Journey

Purpose, Impact, and the Future of Volunteer Scotland

Listen Now

Katherine’s Journey

Listen Now

The Agenda

Speakers

Dr Helen Timbrell

Katherine Perrin

Liverpool City Region Panel

Janet Lewis-Jones

Claire Feeney

Gethyn Williams

Reporting Page Speed Improvements

New Help and Info for the Custom App

Mobile App Download Prompts

Improved Volunteer Password Reset

Email Notification of Deleted Volunteer

Volunteer Registration Form Improvements

Session Number Filter

Length of Service Added to Volunteer Search

Our Commitment to Accessibility

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