How to bring new people into HATCH
This is the procedure for bringing a new volunteer into HATCH. You should follow it if you get an offer of help from someone, and the existing volunteers think that their help would be useful.
If you get an offer of help, but the existing volunteers think they would not be useful, or that there are already enough volunteers, then you should respond letting them know that their offer of help is appreciated but not currently needed.
- Read through the initial contact from the prospective volunteer.
- Arrange a time and date for a voice or video call to discuss things, and exchange necessary contact details. This isn’t a formal “interview” so much as an opportunity to work out what the prospective volunteer might be able to offer HATCH and to answer any questions they may have.
- If they have access needs that make a voice or video call undesirable, you can arrange a text chat instead.
- Before the time of the call, prepare an agenda document listing:
- Basic information about HATCH
- Current status and immediate plans of HATCH
- The prospective volunteer’s known skills and contact details
- Next steps for onboarding
- During the call, do your best to answer any questions they may have, and find out the following information:
- What aspects of HATCH they would be happy to be involved with
- Any aspects of HATCH they would rather not be involved with
- Further contact details, in particular
- Anything necessary to include them in the secure text chat for HATCH volunteers
- Anything necessary to grant them access to any necessary accounts, such as social media or the website Git repo
- Approximately how much time they would be able to offer per week
- Times or days of the week they would be able to volunteer
- Grant the new volunteer access to the secure text chat, and any other accounts they need to have access to.
- Double check their details as you do this, so you don’t accidentally add the wrong person.
- Send a follow-up message to them, asking them to confirm that they have access to the secure text chat. If something has gone wrong and they don’t have access, fix this.