It's been a whirlwind of work with WLLO Village. I love it.
I'm learning new software. Most Villages use Club Express to manage memberships, volunteers and service requests. But it is very old school and cumbersome to learn. Each time I want to get a report, I have to ask the Chair to grant me permission. She is still learning also! Slow but sure.
When a member requests a ride, you can tell CE to only send it to drivers who have agreed ahead of time to certain times or days, weekends or not, evening, etc. If you tell the Chair when you are on vacation, CE will not even send you a request! I do like learning how to use it. To keep costs down the first year or two, volunteers are manning the "office". We have a Google phone number that sends the message via email ... to whichever person is working as office staff that day. Incredible? I sure think so. The office person will then contact Transportation or whomever or call the person to deal with questions over the phone. No one would ever know we don't have a REAL office.
I'm the Facebook post person. The more you post, the more often Facebook will show your page. My goal is to post at least once a day, usually more. One is a helpful article and one is a funny. Facebook lets me see how many people "viewed" the post and how many "engaged" (opened up the article).
May I ask all of my readers who are Facebook users to "like" the West Linn Lake Oswego Village page? I get brownie points for that.
The Village also use G Suite, Google's integrated productivity apps like word processing, spreadsheets, etc. Even a Facetime option! Each leadership person has their own drive and each "team" also has a drive. We are still learning to SHARE documents so others can manipulate your data or document for their own use. Once you finish or work on a document, you can choose to send each member on that team a notice. So much easier than trying to remember who is on what committee and then email them the document. Edits are in real time so you know you always have the latest version.
The Governing Council invited me to join them so now it is 13 in number instead of the 12 apostles. WOW are these people working hard behind the scenes. Last night was my first meeting and I volunteered to be the scribe. Currently members are invited but starting in April each opening will be voted on by the whole membership.
Earlier this summer I was asked to be the Activities Leader. Next to transportation, socializing is the most often requested service. The Chair gave me names of people she thought might be interested in helping and after ONE meeting ... each person volunteered to lead a group! Book Club, Art Group, Breakfast Out, Flick Friends, Happy Hour, Lunch Group to start. Most of these will be "especially for Members" (polite term for Members Only). Happy Hour and Lunch will be open as we would like to entice more members.
There is so much more but we had an HOA Annual Meeting tonight (Weds), so I'm going to stop here and enjoy my glass of red wine!
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The world would be so much grayer without volunteers. You are great to be jumping in with both feet. Love your willingness to do it.
ReplyDeleteThis is my ONE hobby! You are creative and talented at sooooo many things. So far, these people are communicative, open minded and dedicated. Much different than the first go around. It's easy for me to be enthusiastic. But I am doing quite enough and when asked to do another task, I do say here's what I AM doing, which one do you prefer that I hand over to someone else. My main volunteer job is the boys!
DeleteSounds like a great thing to be involved in with volunteering your time and you are learning things in the process! I will go and like your Facebook page after I finish writing my comment.
ReplyDeleteWhen we lived in Montana, I volunteered for Dress for Success. They provide business clothing for women reentering the workforce and need professional clothes. Wonderful organization. Anyway, we didn't have an office per se either. There was the store of course where the women went for their fittings to get clothes, but phones were answered by women at their homes on their days to volunteer. We'd make appointments, answer questions about the program, etc. One day I was supposed to meet the director of the program when I was getting interested in helping out. I didn't realize how they did the phones. I was running late so I called the office to ask them to go across the street from the store where we were meeting for coffee to say I was running late. The lady who answered explained how they worked with not having an official office and that she was at home answering phones and gave me the director's cell number which I didn't have at the time.
Amazing what can be done with technology these days! Seems like your organization is a great one especially with so many people stepping up to start/man groups, etc. Enjoy!
betty