Mentors Team Report 2017 03

Report for Freegle Mentors March 2017

The Team

Mentors currently have 10 members and 1 Board observer.

The Mentor team are:

Alison, Christian, Cooky, David, Diz, Jacqui, Jo and Tom. Sheila is the team coordinator Wanda is acting co-coordinator. Andy Ludlow is our Board observer.

After last months appeal for new members we were delighted to welcome Jacqui from the Bedford group on the team. With Jacqui on board we are able to spread the work out a little and Mentors are now in a much better position to ensure all the groups in our care are properly covered.

Groups Using FD

Mentors had a fairly busy month, we drafted an email to try to get more groups onto Freegle Direct. We sent the email to 52 groups who were listed as not using FD. The latest count of groups not on Direct is now 42, so it looks like we had some success and 10 more groups are now using FD.

New Owners for Caretaker Groups

We also had a good response to the appeal for new owners for groups on our list last month. We are happy to say that Sally from Bexley has now taken on Gravesend and Dee from Croydon and her team have taken on Dartford as the new permanent owners. Alison was caretaking Henfield and has also decided to take it on permanently.

A new owner was recruited and was being mentored by Christian for the Rochdale group, which was a caretaker group, That mentoring was due to end at the end of March, but would have left the group with just one owner who really needs a back up. Just in time an ex moderator volunteered to help and now the two of them are moderating Rochdale as the new permanent owners. They have also taken on Bury and are under Jeans watchful eye while they settle into moderating the second group.

Derby Freegle was also originally a caretaker group and for the last six months Wanda has been mentoring a new moderator. That moderator was promoted to Group Owner last week, so yet another group is off the caretaker list. Wanda is still staying on to mentor and provide back up.

A new moderator was trained for the Leeds group and we have started preparing two new mods for the Llyn Peninsula to be trained on modtools. We hope they will be up and running on Llyn Peninsula in a few days.

Modtools Training

We need a training guide for modtools and Sheila has started work to get that written up.

Home Pages

We helped to tidy up the home pages and update the files in Yahoo on a couple of groups to remove message maker and memberplugin references.

Caretaker Groups

There are currently 34 groups listed on the caretaker list needing new owners and 11 that are being cared for temporarily. These include some groups being cared for by non mentors. Since the list began, permanent new owners have been found for another 34 groups.

We have asked Development group to consider allowing mentors to make Caretaker groups that are centrally run to be made native groups only, as we believe it will be easier to recruit moderators without Yahoo attached to the group. We are waiting for that discussion to be concluded, but we hope that it will enable us to get even more groups off of the caretaker list.

If you are thinking about going away please don’t leave your group un-moderated, we are happy to help with cover. Contact us on mentors@ilovefreegle.org you can just remove us from the mods list on your return.

We come again to the list of groups under the care of caretakers. If any mod teams local to any of these groups would like to take any of these groups on as permanent new owners, please contact us

• Blackwater and Yateley
• Blaenau Gwent
• Brewood, Codsall and Stretton Freegle
• Bridgend
• Cambridge
• Cannock Freegle
• Chelmsford
• Cheslyn Hay Freeworld recycling
• Colchester
• Derby
• Dudley – Black country Freeworld
• Eastwood
• Flintshire
• Frome
• Gateshead
• Livingston
• Llanelli
• Llyn Peninsula
• Moray
• Nottingham
• Plymouth
• Scunthorpe
• Skegness
• Skye and Lochalsh
• South Tyneside
• Swansea
• Taunton
• Thrapston
• Trafford
• Warminster
• Warrington
• Washington
• Wrexham
• Yeovil

The list below is of those who just need a little help or are just being cared for temporarily. We are NOT looking for any new mods on these groups. This list is only to give an idea about what mentors are doing .

• Amber Valley
• Blaby
• Ealing
• Fenland
• Hackney
• Hunts
• Kensington and Chelsea
• Leamington and Warwick
• New Forest West
• Stafford

Mentors are here to help groups any way we can. If you are struggling to cope, please let us know, we are happy to help out.

If you know of any group that is being left unmoderated for long periods, mentors can be contacted in strictest confidence. We would rather help out and get things back on track before a group ends up being abandoned.

mentors@ilovefreegle.org

Mentor team