Local Volunteer Guide
From BeVolunteer Wiki
- This page is part of the Local Volunteers - workplace area.
Attention: The role of "local volunteers" is currently under discussion in the BeWelcome forums (in far too many threads, possibly..). So most of the information on this page has to be considered as temporary, or as private opinion.
This guide has been developed by Kjell (and the LV coordination team), using his experience with coordinating local volunteers for the Hospitality Club project and now BeWelcome.
It is thought for BW Local Volunteers (on City, Region and National Level). There are detailed descriptions for most tasks for Local Volunteers with many hints and tips. If you have any questions, please get in touch with your fellow Local Volunteers who might have more experience, or simply send an email to the team coordinator.
This guide shall inspire and help you to do your job as a Local Volunteer for Be Welcome with good vibration and success! There are several areas where Local Volunteers should and many more where you can be active, it is up to the local volunteer to choose its area of volunteering and make them known.
Contents |
Must-dos for Local Volunteers
As a general guideline you should be able to invest at least 2 hours per week in doing some of the suggested activities. If you find yourself incapable of making that compromise, it is possibly better to remain a normal BW member and support the other Local Volunteers when needed.
Be an example.
We need to practice what we preach. Being a good example is the first step to improving our BW community.
- have an up-to-date profile
The quality of the profiles in BW is a very important variable. If you have a full profile with a photo and lots of information about your interests, your situation etc. it is possible for other members to get a good impression and decide if they would like to know you and when and how best to get in touch. The more filled profiles there are, the easier it is for everyone to arrange actual BW experiences, that is guests and hosts meeting each other. Tip: The "alien" is displayed when the member has not given his/her gender.
- reply to BW messages
Many newbies in BW complain about a lack of responses to their messages in BW (and also a few people who are already in for a while). Of course that tends to dampen the motivation and enthusiasm about BW. So please reply to every BW member that writes to you, even if there is not much you can do for them. Besides showing that the community is alive, there can also be another important function to this: you can tell those members who send very generic emails without much care "why do you write me in particular?", "you say not much about yourself in your email", "your profile looks very empty and you don't have any comments yet", "did you read my profile first, before contacting me?" etc. You can use these occasions to educate those who don't know how to write a friendly message that has chances of getting a reply, even in overcrowded places.
- help BW members
Make an effort to help everybody who turns to you. Since the whole idea of BW is about being helpful to foreigners, we have to go ahead with a good example. Nobody should ever regret having contacted you. Make sure the guests get something out of their interaction with you, and if it is only a tip for a beautiful places to see, an interesting member to meet, or even a little lesson on how to behave in a more respectful way ;)
- write comments
The comments and trust between members are the backbone of our community. It is through interactions with other members that you become a part of the BeWelcome community. And the comments make that visible. Before you have comments, you are not really part of the community. Please make sure that you integrate as many nice people as possible into the project by meeting them and writing a comment about them. Negative comments are even more important than positive ones! They serve the double function of A) warning other members and B) giving the member in question a big incentive to think about his behaviour and learn from that experience. So please write a negative comment every time when you have a relevant negative experience with another member, and also encourage your members to write those comments, while of course always keeping a factual tone.
Gather BW experience.
You want to know what you are talking about, right? When talking to members as well as non-members, you will be able to convince much better when you can speak from your own experience.
- host guests
Receive BW guests in your home, show them around, share your everyday life activities with them if they are interested. Learn from them about new things or differences between your and their countries. Learn to enjoy yourself with your guests and learn to deal with difficult situations and tricky issues. If it is not possible to host them at your home, meet anyway and help them in other ways you can.
- use BW on your travels
Whenever you travel try to meet BW members in the places you visit. Stay with them, if possible. If not, simply meet and exchange and learn about how BW is going in those places. You don't need to travel abroad to use BW. If you visit other cities in your own country get in touch with interesting members and meet or stay with them!
- go to BW camps and meetings
Whenever possible join the BW meetings and camps that are being organized close to you. At those meetings you can usually get to know the most active and motivated members of the region. Those events are a lot of fun and a big boost to motivation for BW volunteer work!
Know your own community.
To develop the local BW community you first need to get to know it. But in the process of getting to know your folks, you are already starting to build the community! Cool, isn't it?
- read the member profiles in your city
By reading you will see who is there, who is still missing, who has something interesting you would like to talk about. You will see who is not yet integrated enough. Who might need help with putting a photo on his profile, who needs to be invited personally to the next meeting, who has misunderstood some aspects of the site, etc. The member profiles in your city is what the BW guest gets to see first and what he "interacts" with in the beginning, so you should know what it looks like and where it can be improved.
- email or phone the local members
When you have guests, when you see something interesting in the profile of a member or simply because the member has just joined the project,....you are there to support and animate the local BW communities. It is a bit like being everybody's friend. So don't feel shy to write or call your members! The first contact is maybe the most difficult, but knowing people personally has great great benefits for your local BW community!
- meet local members
And of course calling or emailing is just the first step. If you find each other interesting, the next step that often follows naturally is to meet in person! You can arrange to meet for coffee or go out at night, or do any activity that you like and enjoy together.
- welcome new members
Create a special button, shown on profiles of new members which says sth like: "Welcome this member". This button leads to a draft to welcome this member. For sure the draft could be modified. Display the button for 1,5 month on the new members profile. Offer to answer any questions and be there if they need help if they need anything. Invite to the next local BW activity if there are any planned.
Know the other Local Volunteers.
Get in touch with the other Local Volunteers in your city, your region and your country, talk with them on the phone, in the chat or by email and as soon as you get a chance: meet them in person. You are a team, will work together, support each other,.... So simply make sure you know each other well and you get to know and to like each other! :)
With the other Volunteers in your City it is important to coordinate your activities: who will welcome the new members, who will organize a meeting, who already has personal contact to which members, who is hosting lately and who would like to,....there are many things to coordinate between Local Volunteers and after all working as a team is much more fun than struggling on your own!
For City Volunteers, the Region and Country Volunteers are your support persons, so feel free to ask them for help and advice for anything related to BW!
Know the BW page.
Many members will turn to you with problems with the BW page and it's technological questions. So it is important to familiarize yourself with the different features of the page.
- Comments
Write and read comments. There are many members who don't know how that works! Explore the important function of comments for our network by reading the comments of others.
- Travel Guide
The BW Travel Guide is a wiki - that means everybody can contribute freely! Write something about interesting things in your city, general information on your country and how to best use BW in your country. Check out the Travel Guides in other places and if you find something interesting - simply copy the idea for your city or country!
Can-dos for Local Volunteers
Of course you can do much more than the essentials! Here are some ideas.
Help
- answer questions
Educate
- make suggestions to members on how to get more out of the BW experience
- write an introduction on "How to use BW in my country/region/city" in the Travel Guide
Develop
- identify problems and implement solutions, or discuss these problems and their solutions with other Local Volunteers face-to-face or in the Volunteer Forum
- send feedback and ideas for new features through the Feedback form of the BW site
Promote
- invite friends and other friendly people to join BW
- share guests with other members from your city - invite them to do activities together
- distribute guests to inexperienced hosts
- have a Stammtisch/regular meeting spot for the local BW community
- organize a BW meeting in your city
Don't-dos for Local Volunteers
Break the rules.
Impose on members.
Lack respect.
Outcomes of the Hospitality Exchange Community Local Volunteer meeting in the Warsaw Winter Camp (Hospitality Club)
Who/what is a Local Volunteer?
- the gate; the connection between guests & hosts
- the face Smile of HC
- local connection
- emergency person contact - should be available
- good example: profile(photo, contact number), behaviour
- ACTIVE!!!
- an open minded person
- should have time
Tasks for Local Volunteers!
- organizing local meetings
- knowing the local community
- contacting new members (WARM WELCOME)
- encourage everybody to have foto in profile
- know something about the area* (* depends on definition :D )
- care about the local travel guide on HC website
- make it clear that he/she is a contact-help-emergency person
- presentation, promotion, explanation (+ explain the HC website)
- active on communication platform
- pass the information
- join the Local Volunteer Forum & make it BIG
