Local Support Groups

Freegle has numerous mod and volunteer discussion spaces. Nationally there are several on a platform called Discourse - https://discourse.ilovefreegle.org/ - which all Freegle volunteers are welcome to join.

It can also be handy to have a smaller online support group for your own Freegle team, or even a county support group.

You can have your own, and use it to

• cc (or bcc) emails with members
• discuss group policy
• hold polls
• store files
• have a searchable archive of correspondence with tricky members
• organise get-togethers
• try new things out, such as home page edits or practice polls
• share local promotional opportunities and ideas

Setting up your own support group

Freegle teams seem to have three main ways of doing this. They either use a groups.io group, a Google group, or a shared gmail account.

How to use a gmail account for supporting your team

Put gmail in your search and click to set up an account. Use a name that identifies with your group, e.g. blythfreeglemods@gmail.com. Select a password that's not easy to guess.

Add the shared address as a moderator on your group(s), with notification of pending members, messages etc. Set up labels for each group's incoming mail, and for things like the moderator log, member queries, admins, standard emails, complaints and banned members, so items can be filed and found again easily. Have a look at the available features and see which you may want to use - multiple inboxes let you keep drafts on show (configure this in settings); these can be for logs and emails to check, and/or for starred items for someone else's attention.

Inform your moderators of the email address and password. Use a shared calendar for volunteers to note when they can cover. Set a signature for the account, for example:

Warmest wishes

XXX Freegle mods.

Why not introduce yourself or chat to other members on our ChitChat page?

Each day, whoever's last online clicks on new email and starts a log with the following day's date. As each volunteer reads or acts on anything left for them, they can initial it, or use their own symbol and colour. When everything has been seen or dealt with, send it to yourself and file it under logs. Each volunteer signs on and off.

Advantages
You can put an email address, or just the first part of it, into search, and all of that member's posts across the groups you cover come up.
When a query about a member comes in, it's easy to get a trace.
A Gmail-based account is often easier to access on the go, out and about.
You can see at a glance who is currently logged in.
New moderators only need to be given access - they don't need to change their own settings.
You can, if you wish, all use the shared address for moderating from and keep anonymous as a team.
If you send a "pending members" email out - and even if you don't - you can file all the replies and any comments against it.
You can use past correspondence to fill in a location on a post if the member has missed it out.

Do change the password when a volunteer leaves.

Don't make the shared email address the group owner - keep that for your own (and any co-owner's) personal email address.

Link: Head of Volunteers