Hey Josh and everyone,
Great to hear things are shaping up at Mechanical Gardens!
We have been running an internal spreadsheet (primarily google sheet) with dates so we know who is expected (but not obligated and has opted in) to open, close and a space for a volunteer to just attend with no obligation to open or close. Anyone else is considered a drop in volunteer.
If they've been before, awesome. They sorta know the scene and we have 1 minute, 5 minutes and 10 minute tasks on a whiteboard for them to do. If they regularly show up, they get added to the group who has access to the spreadsheet.
We also have a hand painted sign that says how RAD Bikes works on the side of our shed. One of the work flow options is "I wanna help!" In which they are instructed to see the head volunteer for the day for a quick intro or tour and can select from some small tasks.
Hope that helps. It's pretty loose, as always, down here but keen to hear other methods that work or don't from others.
Catarina
Hello Pals!!!!!!!! Systems are shaping up at the Mechanical Gardens in NYC, and we're looking to develop more structure for drop-in volunteers. This includes irregular volunteers and regulars too.
What are some of the ways you'd recommend to do this well? And what resources can you share?
- PDFs of handouts from your shops or snapshots of things like task boards would be super helpful, as would other advice!
- We want a balance of "low barrier for entry" tasks and "guidance or skill required" tasks.
- We would love to hear your insights on how to frame these things to be learning and empowerment experiences instead of just "hey do this thing bye" or "hey do this thing while I hover over you."
ALSO ALSO PLEASE LOOKIE: We're posing this as a question to everyone, but would primarily love to hear from some women/trans/femme/gender non-conforming organizers, if anyone who identifies that way is inclined to jump into the thread. Partly this is because the ThinkTank is often very male-dominated, and partly it's because in our shop, at least, cismen are way more likely to jump into / blunder through participating without structures to invite them in or help them contribute in the best way possible. For this reason, insights from non-cismen organizers would be great here.
xox to all of course though :)
Josh
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