Greetings All!
I am very excited to be chairing this group! I am looking forward to getting to know each of you and to help share the knowledge!
Did you know that November 5th is International Volunteer Managers Day?
The theme for this year is Many Backgrounds - One Profession - Stronger Together. Here is the link to the website if you'd like more info - IVMDay – Education Through Celebration (volunteermanagersday.org)
As we get closer to celebrating this special day for our profession, I thought this might be a wonderful theme for our next meeting.
Which as a reminder is on October 26 from 2:00 - 3:00 Eastern.
In preparation for the meeting, I'd love to start sharing some thoughts.
Please feel free to share the answers to the questions below in this feed.
1. Do you manage volunteers, interns or both?
2. What organization do you represent?
3. What is your title and how long have you been with your organization?
4. What has been your greatest success?
5. What is your current challenge?
I'm looking forward to starting the conversation and getting to know all of you.The agenda and more details for our upcoming meeting coming soon!
Hello, everyone! My name is Elizabeth Ross, and I am the Volunteer Coordinator at Dallas Children's Theater in Dallas, TX.
1. I manage volunteers. Interns are handled by the heads of departments here.
2. I work for Dallas Children's Theater (DCT).
3. My official title is Development Assistant - Records and Volunteer Coordination, and I have been with DCT for 7 months.
4. My greatest success so far is moving our volunteer program to an online portal that we launched back in August.
5. My current challenge is getting volunteers to actually take the time to read and process the information I give them before they show up at their shifts.
HI Elizabeth,
Wow taking on moving a program to an online portal in your first seventh months is quite an achievement! Congratulations. Which online portal did you choose? How is it working for you so far?
I completely agree about your challenge. It can be difficult to make sure volunteers are fully reading or preparing for their shifts. I've found this to be especially so when they have been with an organization for some time and think they already know what they might not know.
We've tried to incorporate some quick tips or training reminders in our pre-show meetings that are interactive to try to engage participation.
I'm anxious to hear if anyone else in the group might have some good suggestions on this challenge?