Contacting Groups Procedure
This procedure was originally drawn up in 2017 following resolutions at the 2016 AGM (https://wiki.ilovefreegle.org/AGM_2016_Minutes#Matters_Arising) about Central membership, elected platforms and annual confirmation of affiliation. These requirements are now (2022) all automated via Discourse and Modtools, so manually contacting groups for those is no longer needed.
However, the procedure could still be useful if we need to contact groups, so this has been revised to be a general procedure if that is required at any point. This shouldn’t be used as an alternative for the Abandoned Groups Procedure.
Responsibilities
The Board will appoint a suitable individual or team to carry out the procedure as Contact Admin when required.
Contact Admin
If the Contact Admin is an individual, they will operate within the support of the Mentor Team if the Board feels that is appropriate. Contact will always be within the context of offering support to help communities and volunteers deliver the best they can for their area and Freegle as an organisation.
Contact Process
- Any publicly or previously provided contact route (email, phone, social media, Freegle forums, letter) can be used that is available to the Contact Admin.
- Depending on the information needed, the community/volunteer will be asked to provide details via questionnaire, email or personal reply.
- All contact attempts will be recorded, including date, method and responses.
- This procedure will be carried out over a period of a month, using all reasonable efforts. If there is a lack of response to information requested or no action taken to adopt required actions,a final email should be sent to the owner address to say that the Board will be informed. The Board should then be supplied with details of the communication attempts and outcomes.
- Records will be kept updated as relevant information is received.
- If there is evidence that a Community has not been actively moderated the Mentors will be informed to implement the Abandoned Group Procedure.
- Contacts made should be paced and coordinated to ensure that volunteers or communities are not receiving excess national communications.
Links and Notes
- Disaffiliation Procedure
- Mentor Team Remit
- Abandoned Groups Procedure
- Freegle Central Membership
- Discourse Support Team Remit
- Data Protection Policy
- Amendments to this procedure - refer to [[Document Approval Policy]
- Glossary
