2014 Final Wisconsin Farm Technology Days Report

2014 Final Wisconsin Farm Technology Days Report

Portage County

Volunteer Coordinator

Position Overview

The Volunteer Coordinator assists the Executive Chair and Executive Secretary of the 2014 Farm Technology Days. The primary focus is on supporting the planning committees in their efforts and meetings, scheduling volunteers based on the committees’ needs and the volunteers’ availability, and being available to volunteers and staff.

Position Responsibilities

· Serve as a liaison between volunteers and the planning committees

· Serve as a liaison between volunteers and the UW-Extension Portage County office.

· Facilitate and maintain effective communication with volunteers.

· Become knowledgeable about the history and common practices used in planning Farm Technology Days.

· Assist planning committees in scheduling volunteers based on their area’s needs.

· Assist planning committees in scheduling and conducting volunteer training sessions.

· Guide volunteers in their expectations and duties.

Specific Duties include:

· Maintain volunteer database (Excel spreadsheet and binder).

· Attend committee meetings.

· Assist with the planning of volunteer trainings (creating agendas, reserving rooms, and setting up).

· Assist in training volunteers for the days of the event.

· Send “welcome packets” to all volunteers (except Foods volunteers), which included: informational letters, volunteer schedules, and in some cases, admission passes.

· Worked with FTD website manager to ensure that information was available and up-to-date for volunteers.

· Assist in creating and submitting final reports after the event.

· Work in Microsoft Office applications including: Microsoft Word, Microsoft Outlook, and Microsoft Excel.

· Assist in promoting the event at community meetings and events (i.e. The Portage County Fair, Towns and Villages Association meeting).

· Other tasks and responsibilities as requested from the Executive Secretary.

Timeline

· Ten weeks prior to event

o Hired into position, immediately began working on entering volunteer forms into volunteer database (this task was started by a member of the UW-Extension staff prior to my being hired on), doing follow-ups with potential volunteers who the committees had given me contact information for, and attending committee meetings. See Attachment 1

o My first meeting was an all-committee meeting, where I was introduced, got to learn who the executive committee chairs and co-chairs were, became aware of where each committee was at in their planning stages, and got the dates for each committee’s next meeting, so I could start attending those.

· Nine weeks prior to event

o Continued to enter volunteer forms into the volunteer database.

o Attended Conservation, Tent City, Youth, and Family Living committee meetings, where I learned, more specifically, what stages their planning was at, and what their volunteer needs were.

o Typed up notes from each committee meeting and kept these in a “committees binder” so that I could check back on information I received at each meeting.

o Received a list of potential volunteers for the Field Demonstrations and Farm Tours area, and their contact information and immediately began calling them to see if they would be available to help. As much as it is important to plan ahead, I would actually do this CLOSER TO THE EVENT (but ONLY for this area), because of the nature of the jobs of many of the potential volunteers (many farmers), they were unsure if they’d be able to help until a week or two before the event. In the end, most of those potential volunteers DID help, but they couldn’t officially sign up and get trained until right before.

· Eight weeks prior to event

o Continued to enter volunteer forms into volunteer database.

o Attended Master Gardeners (Education), and Parking committee meetings, where I learned, more specifically, what stages their planning was at, and what their volunteer needs were. I learned that Master Gardeners would not need much assistance from me (they provided themselves with their own volunteers from the Master Gardener pool), and that Parking was in need of at least 25 volunteers per lot, per day.

o Received a list of potential volunteers (FFA members) from the Parking co-chair to begin contacting about volunteering.

o Typed up notes from each committee meeting and kept these in a “committees binder” so that I could check back on information I received at each meeting.

o Started to receive more calls from people who were interested in volunteering and made myself available to them, providing them with the information they needed about the event, which area they may want to volunteer in, and how to sign up to volunteer.

· Seven weeks prior to event

o Continued to enter volunteer forms into volunteer database.

o Spoke at monthly Master Gardeners meeting about the Farm Tech Days event, how to sign up as a volunteer, and how and when to reach me if they had any questions.

o Attended Field Demonstrations and Admissions committee meetings where I learned, more specifically, what stages their planning was at and what their volunteer needs were.

o Attended Media Day, held at one of the host farms, where I was interviewed several times by local media regarding how many volunteers were projected to be needed for the event, how many volunteers I had signed up currently, which committees were still in the greatest need of volunteers, and how to become a volunteer.

o Based on volunteers signed up and their availabilities, I began the task of separating out volunteers into their different volunteer tasks and shifts for the Field Demo and Admissions areas, based on the schedule templates give to me by chairs of both committees. See Attachments 2 and 3

o Continued to receive more calls from people who were interested in volunteering and made myself available to them, providing them with the information they needed about the event, which area they may want to volunteer in, and how to sign up to volunteer.

· Six weeks prior to event

o Continued to enter volunteer forms into volunteer database.

o Met with Executive Chair (Sara Brish) to discuss what direction to take in training volunteers, and decided that she and I would hold basic information volunteers meetings (only 30 minutes long) that would be open to all volunteers. Any committee-specific trainings would be up to the individual committees, and I would assist them in coordinating these.

o Picked date/time/location for the volunteer informational meetings, and reserved the room in the Portage County Annex building for this purpose.

o E-mail blasted all volunteers and committee members about the informational meetings.

o Finished Admissions gate schedule and e-mailed to the Admissions chairs to approve

o Reserved locations for Admissions-specific training

o Began working on Youth Tent volunteer schedule See Attachment 4

o Met with the volunteer coordinator for the Portage County United Way, who worked with me to feature our event on the “Volunteers Rock” website (www.volunteersrock.org,) where interested community members can respond to the volunteer vacancies, and get signed up. I would highly recommend this approach. It helped get more volunteers, and made the event more visible as it quickly approached.

o Attended all-committee meeting, where I updated the committees as to where I was at in volunteer coordinating, and it was decided as a group that I would send out informational “welcome packets” to all volunteers. I wasn’t originally going to do this, but it was a good way to get out admission passes, and also, many volunteers did not have or use e-mail, so this was a sure way for them to know about their trainings and get the proper information.

o Received an updated list of potential volunteers for Field Demonstrations, and continued to call and coordinate those.

o Met with Melissa Sabel (Publicity & Marketing committee; she also was the coordinator/planner for Media Day) and developed an online form volunteers to sign up on, using Adobe forms. This was extremely beneficial, and I recommend it to any volunteer coordinator going forward. It was quicker and easier for the potential volunteer to use, paperless, I could easily update it (delete areas that no longer needed volunteers, for instance), and then could easily copy and paste the volunteer’s information into the volunteer database, instead of having to key everything in.

· Five weeks prior to event

o Continued to enter volunteer forms into volunteer database.

o Attended Hospitality, Youth, Field Demonstrations, and Tent City committee meetings. I updated all committees on the number of volunteers they had thus far, which days/times/shifts had a lack of volunteers, and discussed which direction to take for them to do committee-specific training (if they wanted to).

o Worked on Youth, Hospitality, Field Demonstrations, and Parking schedules (using the template given to me by the committees)

o Discovered a fairly large lack of volunteers for the Field Demonstrations area (they required about 400 time slots, so at least 250 volunteers or so were needed in their area), so Field Demos appointed two volunteers to be the Field Demo-specific volunteer coordinators. They helped me contact potential volunteers, and this proved to be a great help. I would recommend this for any of the very volunteer-heavy areas (Youth, Field Demonstrations, Grounds).

o Reserved locations for Family Living and Admissions trainings, as well as confirmed dates/times for Field Demonstrations training.

o Sent out e-mail blasts to Family Living, Admissions, and Field Demonstrations regarding their committee-specific trainings.

o Drafted the welcome letter template and sent it to Publicity and Marketing to edit and approve See Attachment 5

o Finished Family Living Schedules See Attachments 6 and 7

· Four weeks prior to event

o Continued to enter volunteer forms into volunteer database.

o Attended Parking Committee meeting and edited their schedule based on changing needs (found out that 50 Foods volunteers per morning will be helping with Parking).

o Did final edits of schedules for all committees (except Field Demonstrations, Grounds, and Parking), and sent them out via e-mail blast (for all volunteers who had an e-mail address listed) to the volunteers. Around this time, it became very important to get the information out to the volunteers, as you will become inundated with calls and e-mails from them wondering “what’s next?” (when they will be volunteering, when are trainings, etc.). See Attachment 8

o Prepared labels and non-profit bulk mail envelopes for the welcome packet mailings. See Attachment 9

o Worked with UW-Extensions support staff to create a user profile for the US Postal Service bulk mailing (there is a form that needs to be filled out each time you bring a bulk mail delivery to the post office).

o Sent out first batch of welcome packets via US Postal Service.

o Set up 2014 Portage County Farm Technology Days display booth at the Portage County Fair Grounds with Ken Schroeder, the Executive Secretary.

o Sent e-mail blast to committees seeing who could help volunteer to watch the booth throughout the Friday, Saturday, and Sunday of the Fair.

o Sat at the Farm Technology Days booth for most of the weekend, promoting and explaining the event, recruiting volunteers, and selling calendars for the Family Living Committee.

o After the schedules went out, received many calls and e-mails from volunteers who had availability changes, so I edited schedules accordingly and communicated that with them. This seemed to be virtually unavoidable, especially for those volunteers who had signed up a year or more ago to volunteer.

· Three weeks prior to event

o Continued to enter volunteer forms into volunteer database.

o Assisted with checking volunteers in at Admissions training, and immediately after, recording (in my volunteer spreadsheet) that they had been trained.

o Attended executive committee meeting.

o Assisted Family Living committee with ordering exhibitor admission tickets and VIP parking passes. Most committees did not do this through me, but it is possible that in the future they may go through the volunteer coordinator more.

o Sent out second (final) bulk batch of welcome packets via US Postal Service

o Attended Youth committee meeting

o Continued to call and coordinate potential volunteers for Field Demonstrations, Grounds, and Parking, which were still in need of volunteer slots filled.

o Maintained RSVP counts for committee trainings and communicated the numbers with the committee chairs.

· Two weeks prior to event

o Continued to enter volunteer forms into volunteer database.

o Spoke at the Association of Towns and Villages meeting to speak to our volunteers needs

o Worked with executive chair of the Hospitality Committee to coordinate the Information Booth and Merchandise Tent training days/times and handled the RSVP for these trainings. See Attachments 10, 11, and 12

o Had interview with the Portage County Gazette where I discussed volunteer needs, how to become a volunteer, and the importance of volunteerism for the event.

o My contact information was printed in the paper this week as the media really began to publicize the event, so I was inundated with calls and e-mails from potential volunteers. This was, of course, a good thing, but it became a little overwhelming, which adds to the point that volunteers should be all recruited by three to four weeks prior, ideally.

o Pulled t-shirt orders for all committees and distributed them accordingly, so that they could get them to their volunteers at trainings, meetings, etc.

o Continued to mail out welcome packets as new volunteers rolled in

o Assisted in check-in processes at Field Demonstrations tractor training and the final Admissions training