TeamKinetic has been working to improve the experience and opportunities available to people in sport for almost a decade. We are excited to announce we are now part of a partnership that will help to deliver Sport England’s new Volunteering in an Active Nation vision.
In September, the Sport and Recreation Alliance was handed the baton from the Join In Trust to work with partners to continue to focus on sport volunteering. TeamKinetic is delighted to be a part of this partnership working with Do-it.org, GLL, Jump, Volunteering Matters and Greater Sport.
Because of the importance of volunteering in sport and recreation, the partnership has come together under a shared vision to make volunteering in sport more accessible and more appealing to a diverse range of people. We want to see more people sharing their professional skills, experience and enthusiasm for sport and recreation, and we want them to feel that their efforts to help others are valued and that they benefit from being involved.
We welcome the opportunity to work with the Sport and Recreation Alliance and partners to develop an effective matching service that will make it as easy as possible for people and clubs, organisations and events which need volunteers to find each other.
The ability for universities to prepare students with the skills and experience required by businesses is critical in today’s competitive economy.
Students at The University of East London (UEL) are offered the chance to build a strong portfolio of voluntary work placements within local, national, public and third sector organisations, giving them the experience and contacts to assist them after they graduate.
Why Did They Change?
Their previous volunteer management system offered few customisation tools, meaning that they couldn’t capture some key pieces of information. The limited reporting library also meant they had very limited insight into how much volunteering was actually happening, and if that experience was good or bad.
Frequently students and organisations would avoid updating their details simply due to the awkwardness of the user interface, this eventually resulted in a system entirely out of date.
Students were often shown opportunities which no longer existed, or contact details that had since changed. This was very frustrating for both the students and the providers of the opportunities.
“These system limitations caused us to hold back on promoting the system, which reduced our visibility on and off campus”
Joe Crook – Volunteering Manager
The Move to TeamKinetic
UEL implemented TeamKinetic with a focus on boosting their student employability levels whilst also having the ability to recruit, manage and communicate with their volunteers directly through the system.
“With TeamKinetic, we now have access to the information we need in real-time, including who has signed up and who has completed their induction, and how many hours they have logged which is vital to our volunteer programme.”
Joe Crook – Volunteering Manager
Within 4 months UEL had enrolled over 350 students and 80 providers regularly adding opportunities. By allowing students and businesses to control their own information administration of the system is minimal.
“We spend around 6 hours per week administering the system, which is great as we now have more time to promote our service to local businesses and students.”
Joe Crook – Volunteering Manager
The reduced administration has allowed UEL to focus on marketing opportunities instead of getting caught up in the logistics. This has enabled them to utilise TeamKinetics feedback functions giving them valuable insight into the students’ experience, allowing them to develop and pass on best practice.
“The system has diversified the way that we communicate as we have started to use the functions that are available to us. We also actively use the online news feeds and case studies and this allows us to communicate to our volunteers much quicker and easier than before.”
Our community partners enjoy using the system due to its clean interface, the fact that the opportunities have an expiry date, and that they can add relevant information per position means the opportunities are always accurate and up to date. “
Joe Crook – Volunteering Manager
The Future
The success of the system has allowed UEL to focus on achieving higher conversation rates, from enrolment on the system to placement within a local business.
“We now know which students have signed up and are currently and actively volunteering on a variety of opportunities.”
The TeamKinetic platform is powerful and offers us unprecedented insight into our volunteering programme. The ability to personalise our online presence is fantastic, allowing us to customise the look of the site in line with our branding guidelines, giving us a much more professional feel to the site which is important when dealing with external businesses.
I have already recommended TeamKinetic to a number of Universities around the UK, if you want a professional looking volunteer programme, I advise you to take a look as it is superior to anything else I have come across.”
TeamKinetic are proud to announce that we are now a consortium partner working with the Sport and Recreation Alliance and Join In, alongside other recognised partners, who share the vision of growing the volunteer network, which is vital for the development of sport and activities, for both organisations and individuals within the future.
Throughout this partnership, Team Kinetic have a view to:
Ensure that more opportunities become available for a greater number of organisations. Therefore, promoting a positive message regarding volunteering to a wider audience.
Grow the future of volunteer research and assist with the management of volunteers, for a range of organisations.
To, Recruit, Reward and be Relevant within the market place.
Through working towards these goals, TeamKinetic are adding to the future of volunteer management and assisting with the recruitment for organisations who currently have/ or are looking to have volunteers that: take part within activities, improve an organisation with more active participants and can promote a healthier lifestyle. Demonstrating the importance of recruiting individuals who have been inspired and are interested to become active by volunteering, and are able to find the correct organisation in order to start taking part.
Overall, we share the vision with our fellow consortium partners that volunteering is integral to sport throughout every level and we will work together to make sure the future of sport and volunteering continues to grow and develop.
Welcome to the Special edition of the Park Champions newsletter
Our Park Champions celebrated!
Last Thursday, 6th October, we were delighted to host our annual celebration event at The Podium Bar & Kitchen. It was a fantastic evening that enabled us to say thank you to you – the volunteers who have participated in a range of activities within our Park Champion programme over the past year. Over 110 Park Champions attended and we hope all enjoyed themselves.
2016 has been a fantastic year with volunteers racking up a huge 12,800 volunteer hours. There has been an array of volunteering opportunities from providing information, welcoming guests and delivering the park mobility service at the Information Point to supporting the vast number of events including West Ham United and London Lions matches, National Paralympic Day and Sport Relief. Not forgetting those who really got their hands dirty during the conservation and gardening programme.
We are now looking forward to another exciting year in 2017, with a number of major events coming up on the Park. From the IAAF World Championships and World ParaAthletics Championships to community and sports events to help connect local people to the Park, there is sure to be something for everybody to get involved with. Once again we will be running our hugely successful Park mobility service and there will be many new roles to come with new Park partners so keep your eyes peeled for opportunities.
Congratulations to our Park Champions!
Once again we awarded gold, silver and bronze pin badges as a way of saying thank you for your enthusiasm, energy and dedication to the Park and our Park Champion programme.
Those that completed over 50 hours of volunteering were awarded with a bronze pin. For 100 hours of volunteering a silver pin was awarded and for an amazing 150 volunteer hours we awarded a gold pin.
If you are yet to achieve 50 hours do not worry as you still have until 31st December to claim your pin by racking up the hours – all those that have hit the required number of hours by this date will be awarded the pin. All hours will go back to zero on 1st January 2017.
A full list of the volunteers being awarded with pins to date is below, if you were unable to join us at the event last week please come to the Information Point when you are next on shift so that we can award you your pin.
Frank Scavera
736
Mark Orton
622.75
Sahidul Islam
401.5
Peter Barry
363.5
Keith Gabriel
359.25
Henry Mapperley
245
Graham Soames
227.25
Ricky Brown
203
Sarah Chapman
200.25
Edward Wingate
196.75
Olive Wenborn
187.75
Hilary Victor
183.5
Richard Darby
182.75
Lynn Barker
172
Catherine Ellis
149
Trudi Barnes
147.25
Pauline Djian
142
Viveca Dutt
140
Rohit Jobanputra
133.75
Janet Lowe
131.75
Anne Jennings
129.75
Brenda White
121.5
Christine Daniels
115.25
Jenny Marshall
112.5
Feras Al-hamadani
107
Jenni Hurme
99.5
Jacqui Gagan
98.75
Gillian Bourke
97.75
Clive Myers
94.5
Paul Harper
94.25
Alison Richmond
93.25
Jane Huntley
91.75
Oluwafunmike Akande
90.25
Ann Senior
88.5
Andy Macgarr
86.5
Lizzie Newbold
84.75
Alberto Carcaba
81
Karim El-houssami
79.75
Colin Plummer
79
Sally Elton
78.5
Laura Lincoln
77.25
Helen Roycroft
76
Di Russ
74.75
Steven Skamarski
74
Stephen Rowe
72
Pat Strange
66.25
Fatima Lee
65.5
Katie Blake
65.25
Liam Cornwall
64.5
Maggie Mathison
64.25
Lynne Ellis
62.5
Daniel Kovacs
61.5
Hasmita Shah
60.5
Ray Ellis
59.5
Shinobu Wakamatsu
58.75
Ben Waite
58.5
Pauline Martindale
57.75
Geoffrey Longster
57.5
Susan Marchant
57.25
Janet Lambert
57
Kathleen Mcenteggart
57
Janet Davies
56
Stephen Shooman
55.75
Jean Death
54.75
Jane Astin
54
Paul Lazarus
54
Gillian Morgan
52.75
Tim Benson
52.5
Kathryn Taylor Saunders
51.25
Tom Cavanagh
50
Park Champions ride the slide at the ArcelorMittal Orbit
Park Champions also had the opportunity to take on the world’s longest and tallest tunnel slide. It is fair to say that everybody that experienced the thrilling descent loved it! Following their hair-raising descent the volunteers and stakeholders went on a tour of the Park with our two community guides, Di and Stephen.
More photos of the trip are available on the Park Champions Facebook group.
Park Champions – Volunteer experience feedback
To ensure that we are developing a programme that is exciting, engaging, interesting and fun for you, your feedback is hugely important. This is your chance to give us your opinions on how the programme runs currently and how you would like to see it develop.
The world’s best athletes are coming back to London and this is your chance to see them compete for the title of World Champion at The Stadium, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.
The London 2017 Organising Committee has launched its search for ‘Runners’ – the volunteer programme for the World ParaAthletics Championships and IAAF World Championships.
They are looking for up to 4,000 volunteers to be at the heart of the Championships, helping to deliver the event in The Stadium, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park and across London.
The IAAF World Championships and World ParaAthletics Championships will be the biggest celebration of athletics in the capital since the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
Being a Park Champion, your expertise and knowledge of the Park would be an incredible asset to the ‘Runners’ team. If you want to be part of the event please follow the link below: Who can be a Runner?
Everyone! Whatever your background or ability, there are no barriers to being one of our volunteers.
Every Runner will receive an official volunteer uniform to wear during shifts, which you can keep after the Championships as a souvenir, and meal vouchers for The Stadium, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.
How do I get involved?
Applications are now open to become a runner and will close at midnight on Sunday 16th October 2016. If you would like any further information before applying, click here to visit the FAQs.
You can find TeamKinetic on social media and listen to our podcast:
‘TeamKinetic has ensured that the Homeless World Cup could take place through recruiting and gaining volunteers’
Mariana, Marketing Executive, Homeless World Cup
Sporting events across the country would struggle to run efficiently without volunteers. Think about the huge success of the London 2012 Games Makers and their counterparts in Rio. These volunteers were all essential to making the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games successful and in Rio this year, the volunteers at the Olympic Games have once again demonstrated how invaluable they are.
So you won’t be surprised when I tell you that volunteers play a key role in making sure the Homeless World Cup takes place. However, it’s all very well and good getting volunteers to help manage an event but you also need to be able to accurately manage their time and activities. During the Homeless World Cup, we were able to use AccessKinetic, an accreditation system, and VolunteerKinetic, a volunteer management system to recruit and manage our volunteers who participated. These systems are a part of TeamKinetic which is a suite of applications fostering and growing communities that revolve around volunteering.
The Homeless World Cup took place in Glasgow, during July 2016, at George Square. The venue included, three purpose built pitches with seating, which was the main venue for 64 teams, from 51 different countries. The participants included homeless people from all over the globe, who came together to play a sport that they are passionate about, in order to represent their country.
Throughout the event we identified five reasons why TeamKinetic’s service is vital for organisations to manage their volunteers and help others to become active in sport.
1.Involvement
Volunteer involvement was vital for the running, delivery and management of the Homeless World Cup. The various roles taken on by the volunteers meant they had to undertake different responsibilities. These responsibilities helped the players and spectators, promoted the event and encouraged people to play and get involved in sport.
2. Importance
It was vital that the volunteers enjoyed their roles and that the overall event was a success. Throughout the Homeless World Cup, we had an average of 350 volunteers a day. They all had varying roles with different responsibilities – but it was important that they all helped make the atmosphere for both players and spectators phenomenal. Being able to provide the volunteers with the support they needed to carry out their roles meant the event was able to demonstrate the importance of playing sport and using it to bring people together.
3. Spectators
The Homeless World Cup in Glasgow attracted 80,000 spectators. Their attendance was vital to the success of the event but they also played an important role in making sure both players and volunteers felt valued. By experiencing such a positive, and potentially life changing event for the players, volunteers and spectators were able to see first hand the benefits of an active lifestyle. This is excellent news as research shows that attending sporting events is sometimes enough to encourage people to get involved in sport themselves.
‘Five key core motivations for sports event attendees includes: socialisation, performance, excitement, extreme and diversion. Alongside, focusing on the whole experience to grow and promote participation’ (Greenwell et al, 2014)
4. Participation
Volunteers were able to get involved, participate and reflect on the Homeless World Cup via social media. This is because of an integrated function within the TeamKinetic system. It also helped to engage with players attending the event, as they were selected through a variety of trials and training sessions within their home countries. The VolunteerKinetic system and the accredited AccessKinetic badges, meant that all volunteers gained a sense of achievement and responsibility throughout the event.
5. Post Event
There were many vital aspects for the Homeless World Cup to consider after the event. Including monitoring the number of homeless people who participated in the event and continue to play sport to improve their health and lifestyle. At the same time, it also helped engagement with volunteers through the TeamKinetic system so that we were able to keep them involved in future events.
The Homeless World Cup, and other positive sporting events really help to encourage players, spectators and volunteers to #TryYourKitOn and get active.
While there are many types of volunteer opportunities, they all share something in common: the people donating their time want to be acknowledged for their hard work. Showing your appreciation to every volunteer can be difficult, especially across a large organisation. How do you acknowledge the varying contributions they make? How do you even know?
To start, your organisation needs to create a plan for thanking volunteers — no matter how many hours they contribute to your cause.
Think about it: when an organisation hosts a crowdfunding campaign, they create a strategy for how they’re going to acknowledge donors. From sending out thank-you letters via email to showing their appreciation on social media, there are multiple ways organisations thank donors. And the same techniques can be used to show volunteers you care.
Through the support of volunteer management tools, you’ll have a record of supportes who have volunteered. Use that knowledge to send out thank-you letters soon after a volunteer has donated their time.
Moreover, if you recently held a fundraising event with help of your volunteer workforce, you should show your gratitude publically by posting a thank you on social media.
Additionally, your organisation must look at how you are recognising volunteers within your senior management team and resource volunteering within your operational teams. Do you have a person or persons with a responsibility for volunteering within your organisation at each level of management?
It starts from the top. Is there an acknowledgement at board level as to the importance of valuing volunteers? Bearing in mind you’re a voluntary organisation! That would be a great place to start. We know that when volunteering is valued within an organisation’s culture, you are much more likely to see amazing results.
Once you have some sort of volunteer management in place, you need to consider how you identify and recognise those people who are the “diamonds” for your organisation. These are the future volunteer leaders, those volunteers that operate over a wide range and number of volunteers and that inspire and mentor other volunteers.
To spot these volunteer leader candidates, develop a role in your organisation that examines your volunteer workforce. This role identifies the data and information you need to capture, and understands what motivates your volunteers and then uses that knowledge to facilitate and enable volunteer experiences that are fulfilling and rewarding. Read about our experiences in data insight and what we consider to be the most valuable data or take a look at the work of Join In.
Once you’ve identified volunteers that could potentially become leaders, it’s important to keep them engaged in your nonprofit. That way, your organisation can cultivate them into leaders who can manage and motivate others.
Keep in mind: it is easy for organisations to fall into the trap of offering great rewards and incentives, but the key is to invest in the right people rather than spreading it too thinly across too many individuals. Incentivisation is part of a successful volunteer team, but you need to know what your return on investment is going to be. Who are you spending on? What do you expect in return? Are you investing wisely? Having data on volunteer retention, cost per conversion, being able to map an individual’s pathway from starting out as a helper through to running a county executive or becoming a head coach. This data ensures that you remain focused on finding those “diamonds”.
Finally and we think most importantly you need to look at how you grow from a centrally administered and controlled volunteer programme, to one that is owned by the volunteers, clubs, and participants themselves. Any expanding and successful volunteer programme is partly the result of a groundswell of people from the bottom, not diktats from the top, you need to build volunteer leader infrastructure (by that I mean find great, motivated people and provide them with support, training and resources) that facilitates and enables your existing volunteers to help to offer more amazing, exciting opportunities to the next wave of volunteers. This is the virtuous circle of volunteer investment.
So to recap we think the most important things you can do to help your volunteer programme grow all year round is to;
Achieve an appreciation and acceptance at the very top of your organisation that values the investment volunteers make in your organisation. Value your volunteers.
Develop specific roles within your organisation whose job is to collate your volunteer data and gain insight which can be used to improve your programme. Do not just collect key performance indicators.
Incentivise and reward volunteers all year round. Be smart, target rewards for best returns.
Identify, support and develop potential volunteer leaders. Leverage their experience and enthusiasm to spread your volunteer values.
Sport is known to be poor at retaining its volunteers, it’s time to move on from yearly gestures to look at understanding your rank and file stakeholders (not just members but mums and dads, siblings, and long-standing supporters), what they want and how you can deliver to keep them engaged. We work with organisations to make valuing volunteers an important part of their culture and offer solutions that help with those issues outlined and encourage retention and development of volunteers. Our cloud applications, including VolunteerKinetic, provide an easy- to-implement infrastructure that makes embedding good volunteer practice across your organisation simple.
I hope next International Volunteer Week I can write a blog where I talk about how we have moved into a world where your volunteer is understood and is looked after as well as your CEO.
Many of the organisations we work with offer the same reservations about initiating a new Volunteer Management System.
“Do we really need another IT system? Why can’t we just use our CRM system?”
We are living in a time of rapid technological change and organisations are fighting to keep up with that change whilst battling for attention in an increasingly busy marketplace. Its my aim to try and answer the question above but to also give you some food for thought on how you may future proof your IT infrastructure and grow your organisations ability to effectively communicate with your fans, members, coaches, volunteers, officials and, other stakeholders.
We live in the Post PC world where your various users have choice over how they want to keep in contact with you. This includes phones, tablets, computers, smart TV’s, PC’s and Macs as well as old world technology like magazines and news letters. Netflix has come to dominate the “Video on demand” space through making sure its service is ubiquitous, that is it is available on all platforms. Now I’m not suggesting you are Netflix, but the lesson is clear, know where your users are and prioritize those platforms for development.
Another important lesson from Netflix is to make sure the experience is consistent across those platforms.If people have a bad experience on their phone with your web site or app, their opinion will be diminished across any other digital content you offer.
Not only do we have so many ways to plug in to the digital world, we have an even larger range of software options and channels to communicate through that space;Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat, Chat Bots, Google.These channels provide vast infrastructure and reach but as more and more options become available the cost of keeping all these relevant and interesting becomes harder and harder, also your audience gets further and further segmented making each option less attractive for total market reach.
How do you create an infrastructure that will be able to continue to cope with the endless developments that are coming down the line? Can you build in a manner that allows you create you own communities? If you build your own community do you know how to track its opinions and trends effectively? Can you extract value from that relationship commercially, operationally and socially?
Let start with CRM and the problems it solve and creates.
There is a clue in the name, Customer Relationship Management. In its self it seems to make sense and you could argue it would solve some of the issues I have pointed out above, but let me explain what the issues are:
“Customers”. If I’m selling widgets this approach makes sense, but in a sporting context who are your customers, is it the clubs, the members, the helpers, the fans?
This “customer” focused approach does not encompass the complexities your organisation faces. You do have examples where there is clearly a customer relationship and taking elements from good customer service is never a bad idea, but there are many other examples where you are stakeholder, signposting service, community leader, advisor, service provider, trainer and manager. Your relationship with your “customers” is vastly more complex than most retail or service organisations. Each user group listed has a very specific set of requirements from you.
CRM also makes the assumption that everything will go through you directly as an organisation. What we have learnt over the last 7 years is that communities really thrive when you, a central governing organisation, give your members, customers and interested parties, the tools they need to be independent and to take ownership of their own destiny.
I am not suggesting that a CRM policy is not important, and you should consider it carefully but not at the expense of the end user. Your CRM should be flexible to allow you to work with other solutions. It should provide a data and insight backbone through which you can track opportunities and direct contact. But as the world becomes more complex it is unreasonable to assume it can undertake every aspect of your business communications strategy.
Our particular area of expertise is Volunteer Management, they are not members often, do not always self-identify as Volunteers and they are defiantly not customers.Their roles vary from helpers to chair of your board.Our system provides specific tools for the specific job. Events management, schedule setting, opportunity brokerage, skills mapping and training to name some headline functions.
Providing high powered tools that do a specific job very well, gives your organisation the opportunity to see exponential performance improvement and the ability to achieve new levels of scale.
Our volunteer platform allows Manchester City Council to provide a service for over 7000 users with only one staff member.
So how do you get your CRM system and other specialist systems working more effectively together to get the best outcomes for your users?
Reduce account duplication and sign up fatigue.
Leveraging open auth ecosystems like sign in with Facebook, Google and so on, reduces friction for your users and also reduces the duplication of accounts. As a bonus it also gives a smooth route to encouraging users to share their experiences.
Don’t force square pegs into round holes.
Membership, CRM, content management, social media management; each have very specific requirements, make sure you have the right tool for the job and that they are as tightly coupled as possible so you can share data and get better insights.
Software as a service (SaaS)
SaaS has led to software solutions that are web based and available across multiple platforms at a lower cost. These solutions normally offer specific tools that you can subscribe to as and when you need them.
Don’t get hung up on what you think you want to know
If you provide an easy user experience that encourages user engagement, they will provide you with more insight and data than you will know what to do with. Try and keep your technology focused but most important useful to the end user. If it feels like its more about what you want to know rather than what the end user gets out of using it, they will very quickly disengage. Look at how you collect your data from the way people engage with your various systems and use that data to continually iterate and improve the end user experience.
The story goes that part of the reason Google won the search engine wars in the early 00’s is because they automatically placed the text cursor in the search bar so you did not have to click into it with your mouse. (There was a little more to it that is also worth a read) It really is the marginal gains that lead to excellent end user experience.
The TeamKinetic platform is created using many of the ideals I have shared above.Our software is always undergoing iterative improvements so we can strive towards the best user experience possible. If you would like to find out more about our Volunteering, Workforce, Coaching and Club management systems please feel free to get in touch or visit us here .
The 2015 Unibet EuroHockey Championships took place over nine days during August 2015 and was the biggest event that England Hockey had ever run in terms of volunteers and spectators.
The event consisted of 16 international teams from 11 countries and was broadcast on BBC Television. As you can imagine organising a competition of this size involved a considerable amount of work, and England Hockey knew that having the correct volunteers and using them effectively would be critical to its success.
Setting Up The Volunteer Opportunities
All opportunities were setup on the Hockeymaker.co.uk as ‘Applying’ opportunities. This meant that all volunteers were automatically informed that they were applying for a volunteer role, as opposed to it being a ‘first come first serve’ basis.
By utilising the ‘Enter a brief description’ function, volunteers were asked to leave a brief description as to why they thought they were suited to the opportunity. This enabled England Hockey to capture and short list large numbers of volunteers with relative ease.
Sessions were split into morning and evening and volunteers had to attend a minimum of 7 sessions to be eligible. This ensured that the cost of kit and training per volunteer was kept to a minimum.
Recruitment
Preliminary calculations suggested they would need 300 volunteers to fill 40 different volunteer roles (opportunities) ranging from team liaison officers to spectator services.
The first wave of recruitment started in September 2014 as part of a three month application window. This was followed by a second wave of recruitment in April to cover roles which had a low uptake.
By the end of the second recruitment drive 881 new volunteers had registered and 268 volunteers were confirmed on the event, with only 5 no-shows during the event.
The majority of the volunteers were from the UK but they did have some from the Netherlands and Germany.
Lessons Learnt
(1) Opportunity Not Required
The event went very smoothly with no major issues. There was one catering staff role which they had recruited for but it turned out they were not needed, but these volunteers were redistributed to other roles.
(2) Combining Good and Bad Opportunities
The one big lesson they did learn from the event was to combine the ‘Programme Sales’ volunteers based at the gates (which was a comfortable and enjoyable role) with the ‘Welcoming Staff’ based near the train station (which was a little isolated and had a high drop-out rate). By combining the roles they would be able to rotate the volunteers so everyone gets a chance to experience the arena.
(3) Dealing with Drop-outs
Organising the sessions when people dropped out, and moving people around from popular opportunities etc. This was the biggest task…making sure that they had enough numbers per session.
Although VolunteerKinetic allowed volunteers to mark themselves as ‘ Not Attending’ via the website, volunteers often contacted them by phone or email. This meant there was a manual process for the admin to complete in order to keep the system updated.
Covering the drop-outs was dealt with by sending SMS Texts via the VolunteerKinetic system, asking volunteers for urgent help filling the gaps. This proved to be a very succesful approach which allways more than covering the short falls.
Conclusion
Overall a very positive and successful event, volunteers were very happy with the system, a small number of the older volunteers were unsure of how to register but this was easily managed over the phone. They managed to recruit a large number of Hockey Makers who were experienced but new to hockey.
“The biggest advantage was allowing volunteers to register online, we couldn’t imagine having to do it via email or paper applications, it would definitely would have been a huge task without the VolunteerKinetic system.”
With public health under new budget pressures and no sign of abating cronic health needs the Guardian discussion on the roll of the Voluntary sector offers some interesting arguments.
The widely held view that volunteers are predominantly older women with a lot of time on their hands is a myth, says a report that suggests it is 25- to 34-year-olds who dedicate the most time to unpaid work.
In a damning survey of charitable attitudes among different age groups, a third of Britons said nothing would persuade them to leave the comfort of the sofa or the warmth of the pub in order to make a difference in their community. This figure rose to 47% of over-55s – compared with just 12% of 18-24s.
Younger people were doing more good work, with the 25-34 age group bearing most of the burden of volunteer work. The number of hours spent volunteering is higher in younger age groups: those under 35 said they spent an average of two hours a week volunteering, compared with the hour that over-55s claimed to spend.
Dan Jones, director at the innovation charity Nesta, which carried out the research, said the notion that the “baby boomer” generation wouldn’t volunteer was a “real worry” for the sector. “The voluntary and charitable sector really relies on those over-50s with a bit more time on their hands,” he said. “If people now hitting that age range aren’t going to be helping in their community but just thinking about themselves and going to Alicante, or whatever, we’ve got a challenge ahead.”
He said younger people recognised the value of charitable work: “They see it as a win-win: giving back, helping their own CVs and making an impact.”
The research, to be published this week, found that, on average, the public spend one hour 47 minutes volunteering each week, compared with 12 hours 40 minutes watching TV, nearly three hours commuting and two hours in the pub. (Respondents spent less time in the gym – one hour 28 minutes – and queueing for coffee – 45 minutes.) Men were more likely than women to help an elderly neighbour: 34% compared with 30% of women.
Respondents believed the average volunteer to be female, over 60 and a grandparent, which used to be the case, said Jones. “Earlier surveys showed that about 40% of people volunteered once a year and 25% once a month,” Jones said. “It’s always been the case that women volunteer more than men so it’s striking to see the swapping over in the trends. Women have always been the backbone of volunteering in the UK.”
The ability for universities to prepare students with the skills and experience required by businesses is critical in today’s competitive economy.
“These system limitations caused us to hold back on promoting the system, which reduced our visibility on and off campus”
