Well, I knew that already

But somehow it’s nice to sum it up, so I can finally act on it.

Most of the things I learned this last term are things I noticed before, already knew or had a hint it would be the case. This term has been more a time to clarify and confirm things than learning new ones.

So this is the list of things I knew somehow, but got confirmation of:

• Virtual vols and in person vols are different, therefore they need to be targeted, addressed and managed differently.

Because the virtual programme was initially an extension of the in-person programme, we have a tendency to consider “volunteer” as a whole and consider whether they are virtual or in-person on the same level as if they are volunteering in Hackney or Haringey.

But since the virtual programme is a permanent programme, we need to address the differences between virtual and in person volunteers. They are different and needs to be considered as different roles. Some of the questions we need to answer:

• What motivates them to volunteer? Do they have different motivation from in person volunteers?
• Do they need different skills?
• How is their experience different from in person volunteers?
• Who are they? Are they younger/London based?
• I get overwhelmed by details very easily, and need to keep a big picture image at the fore front of my mind

I find it reassuring to have a clear list of small tasks so I don’t need to ask myself what I need to do next. But it lacks a sense of priority, and I can get side tracked. So for example rather than tackling a big questions, I will focus on the next small step, and the next one on the list. But it is equally important to spend time thinking about a project as it is about “doing a task”.

I will find out I am late in the finalisation of a project because I finished a small tasks and assumed the work was done. But without seeing the big picture, I miss that this small task was part of a project that will need more things to work on.

• I need to write things down, for me, the team, and the overall strategy, to make sure we (I) stay on track and don’t lose myself into the details

Link to the point above, to avoid being lost in details, it would help to have a calendar of projects, things to achieve and objective for the near future to be able to keep track of what’s needed and what will come later.

There are lots of different pieces moving but putting them all down to one place will help connect them to each other. Therefore when I look at the new reward system for example, I could see that it is not an isolated project, but is a piece in a chain of event: we want to implement a new reward system to offer to volunteers, so we will announce it to volunteers, so we will share it in the newsletter, but then we need to write other things going in the newsletter, and to know what to share about the reward system, we need to have set it up, but to set it up we need to know which volunteers will be rewarded, but to know that we need a system in place.

Big picture helps connect the dots of different projects that will be interconnected.

• Not having enough data to back up an idea/project is the equivalent to working in the dark

I had a feeling that our volunteer training could be better. This came from seeing the training for the first time, my experience with training volunteers in different organisations, and my experience attending various training. But this feeling is biais as it is coming from my own experience.

This is why I think we need to collect more data before going into a new project. If we start asking a few questions to all volunteers who attend the trainings, we will be able in a short space of time to collect enough information to learn what in our current trainings is working well, what our volunteers think of the training, and how we could improve it.

It is also true to the impact ratio has on the programme. We are aiming at 1:1 in-person and 1:2 virtual, but we know we rarely reach those ratios. In that case what is the impact a 1:6 or more ratio has on the programme?

I’ve seen sessions without crewmates going very well (from a staff perspectives) and asked myself “will it be better to have no crewmates at all rather than one crewmate for too many YPs?”.

If we realise that it is more damaging to have a big ratio than no volunteers at all, this will raise the question on how we allocate volunteer spaces. For example, should volunteers sign up for a day and then be allocated a location? So if we have a total of 15 CMs, we can decide where they will be best placed (as in all in Haringey and none in Hackney?).

Overall I knew all of that stuff but this last period has confirmed a lot of what I felt was true. This is the data I needed to be able to construct a project plan. Big picture