Providence Planning 08 01 2006

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  • Date: August 1
  • Facilitator: Seamus
  • Scribe: laurel
  • Minutes Checker: RFS
  • Place: meeting room

Attendance

Shawn, Dave, Kerm, Liane, RFS, laurel, Seamus

Old Commitments

  • Liane and Dave - visit the warehouse and ask questions and report back - IN PROGRESS
    • Dave was on vacation; we haven't heard back from Providence; he'll call them tomorrow.
  • Proponents of the warehouse plan - continue to seek input - IN PROGRESS
    • The action and receiving committees have met about it.
    • Plans keep turning into bigger things than we can actually do.
  • Outreach - work on a plan for volunteer outreach - IN PROGRESS
    • Shawn and Sophia will be talking about this at the next outreach meeting.
  • Richard - look at the database, figure out what kind of data could be retrieved, and report it to Council and Providence - PARTIALLY DONE
    • Data has been mined, could be massaged more to yield better info, will be reported
    • Grouping jobs can help us figure out patterns in volunteer work and retention
    • See volunteer discussion below for preliminary results
  • Liane - try to find out about landlord permission for container - DONE
    • We're good to go
  • Seamus - bring up the container issue on the Directors' list - DONE
    • Funding for container has been approved by the board
  • Richard - bring hours recording processes for builders up in the staff meeting - DONE
    • Kathie did it; more hours will be recorded in build area; Kathie and Sophia are working on new processes
  • Richard - present news of Providence at the council meeting - DONE
  • Seamus - bug Dave about filling in numbers in income/expense estimates - DONE in the meeting

Volunteer program developments

(Shawn, currently reading Volunteer Management 101. She's wearing a feisty black and white scarf and top and an insouciant air tonight.)

Volunteer outreach

Plan for volunteer outreach is to hit up organizations that have been recommended, like parks and rec and orgs that serve our adoption volunteer demographic. Idea is to get our information to the staff in those organizations because they will be around longer. It's a lot of footwork. Recommendations for potential organizations are welcome.

Richard says the number of volunteer hours has levelled off. Dave wants to see a comparison between staff hours and volunteer hours to see if there's any correlation that might imply that volunteers are more likely to work when they can get more attention. Knowing the ideal staff to volunteer ratio will definitely be useful in planning expansions.

Volunteer Retention

HR is largely working on ways to make sure staff on the floor are more attentive and have more time on the ground. The culture of how to deal with volunteers is in evolution.

  • (Liane) Volunteers tend not to have sufficient information. Often not enough people at the front desk to answer questions
  • Volunteer intake is not working well; people have to wait around.
  • It may be time to implement a formal orientation; the time could count toward their hours. Why didn't we do this when we were on it before? Didn't have time. (Dave) Orientation should be optional. People would be welcome to participate in one if they want. (rfs) Part of the problem is not that people aren't told, but that it's confusing. Scheduling will still be a problem. (Kerm) Maybe we should have a person available to answer questions at the end of each shift. (Shawn) Having an orientation not necessarily at the beginning of a volunteer's time is appealing so that less time is wasted.
  • Group brainstorm: issues that might be addressed by having an orientation
    • Early information overload
    • People not knowing what to do next after completing a program
    • Convey structure
    • Who to ask what
    • Give outreach info
    • Better acculturation

(8pm, Liane leaves, ohnoes!)

    • Pull people into the community
    • Save staff time
    • Reduce congestion at front desk
  • Group brainstorm: Drawbacks/questions about orientation as a solution
    • Impact of pulling volunteers away
    • Staff resources (time)
    • Burden on volunteers if it's required
  • (Seamus) making it optional can address some of these issues.
  • (Kerm) How much of this could be on the wiki? (Shawn) It's already there. Note to Shawn: can that be linked to, please?
  • (Seamus) the role of this committee is not to develop an orientation, but to help other parts of free geek to come up with plans that would make changes possible. (Shawn) If an orientation is recommended, I need to know that I'll get the time and resources necessary to implement it or it's not going to work.

Other ideas for volunteer retention:

  • more fun stuff and recognition. Movie nights, core breakfasts.
  • Stipends for travel; opportunity to enroll in group health.
  • Regular thank yous and checkins as part of regular habit.
  • How possible is build instructor dinner?
  • Random rewards ("here's your baggie of cocaine, thank you!")

We still don't know how many more hours of volunteer time we'll need to do Providence; when we come up with this, we hope we'll be able to find out from HR and Outreach whether that is possible.

New Commitments

  • Liane and Dave - visit the warehouse and ask questions and report back - CARRYOVER
  • Proponents of the warehouse plan - continue to seek input - IN PROGRESS
  • Outreach - work on a plan for volunteer outreach - IN PROGRESS
  • Richard - continue working on data mining and interpretation
  • Dave - fill in numbers in income/expense estimates
  • Shawn - will take ideas for retention and outreach to appropriate committees and come back something like once a month

Next Meeting

  • Facilitator: Seamus
  • Scribe: laurel
  • Date and time: 8/8
  • Place: free geek
    • Talk about the tripartite plan
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