We do a weekly new volunteer orientation. Details are here:
http://tinyurl.com/lywkttz

Unless you have very high new volunteer volume, I'd personally recommend once or twice a month to get more folks in the orientations and to maximize the time your staff or experienced volunteers spend training new people. We've been doing weekly orientations for a long time but sometimes only have 1-2 new people per week, which is inefficient and sometimes awkward, and sometimes no one new at all which wastes our time waiting around. On the other hand, we sometimes have ~10+ people, and more than that can get unruly.
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Joshua Goran
Administrator, Ohio City Bicycle Co-op

1840 Columbus Rd
Cleveland, Ohio 44113
216 830 2667
OhioCityCycles.org