Volunteering Development Teams scenarios
Some extra inspiration to help you set up and run a Volunteering Development Team
Every District and County/Area/Region (Scotland) is different and how you volunteer together to make sure all volunteers in your patch have a fantastic volunteering experience may vary.
These scenarios are here for some extra inspiration about how you could approach activities in your team.
District scenario
The District Volunteering Development Team has 1 Team Leader (Chris) and 2 Team Members (Martha and Mo).
There are no sub-teams.
Chris, Martha and Mo review the teams' tasks quarterly and decide how they’ll do them. They prioritise the most important tasks depending on how much time they have. This means that some tasks might change each year or throughout the year.
The team meet regularly and use a WhatsApp group to keep in touch. Martha and Mo catch-up up separately with Chris every couple of months to talk about how things are going and anything they might need support with.
Each of them is responsible for some specific tasks. When they need support or have less availability to volunteer, they share or swap tasks between themselves.
As the Team Leader, Chris:
- Attends District Leadership Team meetings to share and listen to updates
- Has catch-up meetings with District Lead Volunteer and with the other Team Leaders in the District when needed
- Supports Martha and Mo as and when needed
- Runs the Our Volunteering Culture: Well Done You! and Let's Do the Challenging Ones activities with Martha and Mo each year
Chris is a people person and is very keen on creating a culture of celebrating and recognising our volunteers across the District.
Chris:
- Chats to volunteers in neighbouring Districts to get some ideas on how they celebrate and informally thank their volunteers for what they do
- Attends some Group Leadership Team meetings to share these ideas and to do a demo of the recognition resources available on scouts.org.uk
- Promote the Our Volunteering Culture activities to Group Lead Volunteers to help them think about what it means for them and their teams
- Uses the internal District social media group to share ideas about how to recognise and celebrate volunteers, and to promote the recognition resources that are available on the brand centre.
- Offers one-to-one support and drop-in sessions to help explain our awards, the eligibility criteria and help with writing award citations.
- Helps the Support Team organise a local end of year celebration event known as the “golden woggles”. This is how their District informally recognise and thank their volunteers and is an opportunity to present national and long service awards.
Mo was previously part of a training team and would like to continue supporting our volunteers with learning. Mo:
- Posts a poll on the internal District’s social media group once a term, asking volunteers what they’d like to learn.
- Attends District Leadership Team meetings twice a year to discuss and reflect on volunteers’ learning needs.
- Helps volunteers with the Trainer and Learning Assessor accreditations to share best practice amongst themselves and coordinates them to deliver skills workshops and learning sessions.
- Joins the quarterly County online meetings to discuss learning across the County, network and ask for support.
- Offers support to anyone who might be struggling to complete their learning and matches them with a buddy, if needed.
- Works together with the neighbouring District to coordinate and deliver First Response training.
Mo has great facilitation skills and would like to use these skills more often at Scouts. Mo also:
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Helps the Programme Team run an online drop-in session every quarter for section volunteers to network, discuss any challenges they might be facing and share best practice.
Martha enjoys welcoming new volunteers to Scouts and helping our volunteers to do this well.
Recently, Martha has taken on caring responsibilities for her parents and sometimes needs to step back from her tasks at Scouts.
Mo has a bit more free time and steps in when Martha isn’t available.
Martha and Mo:
- Answer volunteer enquiries and help new volunteers find the best opportunity for them.
- Offer support to Team Leaders and Group Lead Volunteers with completing criminal records checks and finding buddies for new volunteers.
- Administrate the ‘welcoming new volunteers’ WhatsApp group with everyone involved with welcoming volunteers. This is where Lead Volunteers and Team Leaders can get support with organising welcome conversations.
- Support volunteers who would like to do welcome conversations to complete their learning.
- Regularly review the number and geographical spread of Welcome Conversation Volunteers across the District.
- Encourage Team Leaders and Lead Volunteers to keep a “look out” for people who’d make great Welcome Conversation Volunteers.
- Run a meet-up event twice a year with everyone involved with welcoming volunteers to give updates, share tips, celebrate success and network.
County/Area/Region (Scotland) scenario
The County Volunteering Development Team is jointly led by 2 Team Leaders (Ozioma and Paul) and there are 4 Team Members (Ali, Shaun, Abbie and El).
The whole team (Ozioma, Paul, Ali, Shaun, Abbie and El) meet once a quarter to discuss how things are going and celebrate success. They use a shared calendar and shared folder to help them have an overview of what everyone is up to and they communicate by email when needed.
Abbie and Shaun volunteer together to support a great volunteer experience across the County and to support District Volunteering Development Teams. The two of them communicate regularly by WhatsApp and meet when needed.
There is a ‘Welcome to Scouts’ sub-team that focuses on supporting and celebrating new volunteers during their welcome journey. Ozioma leads this team and supports the Sub-Team Members, Ali and El. The three of them have regular catch-ups to coordinate and discuss tasks and find out how things are going.
Ozioma and Paul lead the team together. This means they can share tasks when needed, but also have specific tasks that they are responsible for.
They communicate regularly by email and text and have a monthly catch-up online.
Ozioma and Paul:
- Organise and run a meeting for all District Volunteering Development Team Leaders twice a year.
- Meet with District Lead Volunteers and District Volunteering Development Team Leaders individually to share ideas on how to improve the volunteer experience and discuss how the District and County Teams are working together.
- Highlight where District Volunteering Development Teams could collaborate with neighbouring District Volunteering Development Teams.
- Organise County Volunteering Development Team quarterly meetings.
Ozioma:
- Share details of manager and supporter training with relevant volunteers and gives them one to one support to help them access this training, if needed.
- Checks-in with Ali and El individually to chat about how they’re getting on and if they need any support.
Paul:
- Organises the annual County celebration event for all volunteers. This is an opportunity for the County to come together to recognise and say thank you to volunteers.
- Catches up with Shaun and Abbie individually to find out how they’re getting on and if they need any support.
Abbie and Shaun volunteer together to support the wider volunteer experience in the County and support District Volunteering Development Teams.
Abbie and Shaun:
- Manage the Volunteering Development Team email inbox and respond to any District queries about recruitment, joining, learning, reviews, awards and volunteer recognition.
- Moderate the County’s learning social media group, where volunteers share learning opportunities, ask for support and exchange ideas.
- Coordinate learning opportunities with external organisations.
- Organise and run “Learn Fest”, a County event where volunteers can share their knowledge and learn new skills. This is also an opportunity for all volunteers in the County and Districts who support learning to meet up.
- Coordinate the ‘thank you campaign’ during Volunteers’ Week to celebrate volunteers across the County and encourage Districts to thank their volunteers for what they do.
- Support District Volunteering Development Teams with award nominations and award citations.
- Contribute to the County Leadership newsletter, organised by the County Support Team, to share what’s happening across the County and celebrate success.
The Welcome to Scouts sub-team focuses on supporting and celebrating new volunteers during their welcome journey.
They have online catch-up meetings every two months and a closed WhatsApp group for their day-to-day communications.
They have a separate WhatsApp group with volunteers in County Teams who have the Welcome Conversation Volunteer accreditation.
As the Sub-Team Leader, Ozioma:
- Provides one to one support to Ali and El
- Organises the sub-team's monthly catch up
- Shares updates with the County Volunteering Development Team
Ali’s and El’s tasks:
- Manage County volunteering opportunities at scouts.org.uk and answer any enquiries
- Support the County Lead Volunteer and Team Leaders to organise welcome conversations.
- Promote and use the resources for thanking volunteers in their first year with Lead Volunteers and Team Leaders.
- Award the "Congratulations, it's been a year" certificate to volunteers when they reach this milestone.
- Write emails to District Lead Volunteers and County Team Members to introduce new volunteers when they join.
- Use the dashboards at scouts.org.uk to see how volunteers are progressing with their Growing Roots learning and offer support if needed.
- Support Lead Volunteers and Team Leaders to run Our Volunteering Culture activities with their teams.
- Offer monthly drop-in sessions to support Districts with recruitment and answer any questions on Growing Roots learning, references and criminal checks.
- Attend recruitment events with District Teams
- Organise and run a meet up with District and County volunteers who welcome new volunteers to Scouts to share tips on how to create a fantastic joining journey locally, discuss ideas about how to improve the joining journey, network and celebrate success.
Discussion Guide
Prompt questions and examples to help you discuss with your team how you'll set up and run your Volunteering Development Team.
Download discussion guide