Volunteer management

Page last edited 3,106 days ago
From thoughtfulfoods
Jump to navigation Jump to search


What is the Role?

In addition to the expected duties of a coordinator, as the Volunteer Coordinator your role is to coordinate the recruitment, training and ongoing participation of regular, task-specific, and drop-in volunteers at Thoughtful Foods. You serve as the point of contact to the co-op for these volunteers and are responsible for providing them support and any further training they require. You are also responsible for updating any documents related to volunteers’ if/ when processes or training changes. There is no specifically associated shop shift for this role but it is required that the coordinator has a weekly shift as well as attend meetings.


Why is this role important?

Thoughtful Foods is completely volunteer run so it is crucial for the smooth running of the organisation that the volunteer coordinator role is filled. The volunteer coordinator oversees the management of all volunteers related to the co-op. This promotes sustainability of the co-op as tasks can be spread among many people with the volunteer coordinator overseeing these. One of the most important parts of the role includes maintaining and regularly updating a database of volunteers and their skills and abilities & liaising with other coordinators to assist in the mobilisation of these volunteers as needed.


Timeline: Crucial dates throughout the year

Summer

End of February - Oweek stall and ancillary promotional events. Need to have volunteers for stall and shop.

Semester 1

Early Semester - Recruit and up-skill volunteers that are interested in running shifts to maximize shop-opening hours

Promotional events through semester - Ensure there are enough volunteers to help with prep and running events – liaise with events coordinator

Social event - Invite any regular volunteers – get to know them


Semester 2

July - UNSW volunteer expo – good outreach event to gain more volunteers

Early Semester - Again need to find volunteers to run shop shifts as people’s timetables/ availability will have changed

End of semester - contact volunteers to see who will be around over summer/ next year and if necessary pass on this information to next volunteer coordinator


Tasks

Daily/Weekly

  • To ensure regular (at least weekly) training sessions are available for members to undertake volunteer training
  • Email active shop shift volunteers regarding roster, deliveries, upcoming events and any other important information from the previous co-ordinator meeting
  • To serve as a point of contact for any volunteer with specific grievance issues

Monthly

  • Recruitment of new vollies through specific events – working closely with Membership, Promotion and Events Coordinators to recruit interested individuals towards membership and volunteering
  • To maintain and regularly update a database of volunteers and their skills and abilities (in a place accessible to other/future coordinators); to liaise with other coordinators to assist in the mobilisation of these volunteers as needed
    • Assisting in rostering for events, e.g. cake stalls; BBQs; OWeek.
    • Assist in rostering for regular vollie shifts, e.g. to ensure even distribution of vollies across shifts
    • Allocating specific out of hours vollies roles as needed, e.g. tea towel; jar; article/bulletin vollies.
  • Approach current volunteers about co-ordinating or directing in the next semester/year
  • To assist in the coordination of additional training of volunteers who demonstrate specific skills/abilities.
    • This may include ensuring adequate finance/register training so that volunteers may undertake unsupervised vollie-run shifts

Quarterly

  • Assist in the training of other coordinators to undertake volunteer training sessions for interested members
  • To update volunteer related documents, including HTDS Book, vollie training checklist and Coordinator training session materials as vollie-specific practice changes.
  • To undertake a handover as the incumbent coordinator with your counterpart when you step down.
  • Update the ‘Volunteer management’ role description on the wiki with any changes or additions you feel would improve it for future users. See link for details on the process:

http://thoughtfulfoods.shoutwiki.com/w/index.php?title=Special:UserLogin&returnto=How+to+edit+this+wiki


Wiki editing responsibility

The Volunteer coordinator is responsible for keeping this role description & the pages under category:volunteers up to date. See the link below.