Emergencies

We all have emergencies from time to time, whether personal, local or national. These pages and contacts will help.

1. The Mentor Team

The Mentor Team can offer help for a variety of situations:

• One-to-one assistance to local volunteers who need help with any aspect of running their community.
• Short-term moderation support for a community during holidays, illness or other emergencies.
• Acting as the lead team in identifying and offering help to struggling communities.
• A caretaking service for communities whose local moderators are absent for a period of time.
• Allocating new owners for Caretaker Groups where needed.
• Handling the process of running and handing over caretaker or abandoned communities to new owners as appropriate.

2. National mailboxes

Two teams monitor the national mailboxes to help volunteers and others (members, external enquiries, etc):

• info@ilovefreegle.org - can help with complaints and confidential matters, and is useful for pointing volunteers to the best person to help in any situation.
• support@ilovefreegle.org - offers advice about technical issues of running a community, whether that's Freegle Direct, ModTools, or other general computer or device problems.

3. Freegle UK Central Group

Freegle UK Central Group is the national forum for all volunteers - a place to discuss issues and ask for help from others across the UK.

4. Local or national emergencies

If there's a local or national emergency or disaster, please refer to Emergency Response and Urgent Appeals - Group Response.

The bottom line is - please ask! A problem shared is a problem at least halved, or ideally solved. We all work in isolation online, so remember you're talking to people who understand the specific pressures that brings. Nothing is too silly, minor or difficult that others can't offer some support.