I live in Swinderby, Lincolnshire, and I organise and coordinate a number of volunteer activities. These include:
In our little village of Swinderby, Lincolnshire we’ve been using technology to solve the volunteer phoneline conundrum. We have an automated system which is programmable with volunteer schedules and divertible to any landline or mobile. This means we advertise one number for residents to call, but we don’t need to swap a mobile phone between volunteers and households. This has been working well for six months now, and with winter approaching and the possibility of increasing tiers of lockdown, we’d like to try to help other groups use the system.
During late February and March 2020, I set up the Swinderby Pandemic Response. Our volunteer group supports those who need help within our rural village in Lincolnshire. Like many other community volunteer groups that formed in light of the pandemic, we support people who need help with shopping, collecting and delivering prescriptions, and any other small tasks they need like putting out bins or finding local information.
At the beginning of the pandemic with lockdown looming, many offers of help, and volunteers to coordinate, I tried to automate the situation as neatly as possible. I also had a pre-schooler and a 6 week old baby to care for, so simple was key. I used Google Forms to gather information, doodle.com to coordinate volunteer shifts, and my lovely understanding husband Graham created the system that runs the Pandemic Response Line.
We would really like this to be our legacy and would love to share this with groups in order to make everyone’s lives a little easier over the coming months and into the new normal as it slowly returns and the pandemic passes.
Looking forwards to times when the pandemic has passed, I hope this tool will be useful for community groups and businesses alike. For example, making them able to have a phone number on stationery and in adverts that can just be diverted to the new secretary of the club, rather than needing to update all advertising.
If you think your pandemic response would benefit from this system, please do email me at sarah@orchidglade.co.uk - I can answer any questions you have and help you get set up.
If you are not responsible for your pandemic response, I’d really appreciate if you could pass this onto your community volunteer groups and any community organisation who you think could benefit - we’d love to help where we can.