Cheers to Jo Ann, CCBC, Baltimore, MD
The Community College Baltimore County (CCBC) of Maryland is a learning institution, which ranks among the top innovative strategy learning centers. Among instilling young minds, CCBC calls for various volunteering opportunity, which it turns to VolunteerSpot as an aid.
Please tell us about your organization and your volunteer needs.
On May 27, CCBC held its 15th annual Professional Development Conference and Fourth Annual Biennial President’s Cup Challenge. The conference provided all CCBC employees an opportunity for growth and development, and the President’s Cup is a series of fun and competitive game challenges — a Popcorn Relay, Water Balloon Toss and an Office Chair Race to name a few! We had more than 800 participants for the conference, and 11 teams with 11-15 people on a team for the games. Needless to say – that was a lot of people, so it was very important to have volunteers help throughout the days!
Explain how you use VolunteerSpot to coordinate these volunteers.
I’m on the Professional Development Committee, and I was the main Volunteer Coordinator for the event. I had two committee members who also helped me greatly, as this is my first year at CCBC and my first conference and President’s Cup. They helped me determine what volunteer roles would be needed, and what areas would require coverage from start to finish. Going over the conference timeline and the roles helped me determine how to arrange the VolunteerSpot times. Since our volunteers were also conference participants, it was important to request blocks of time, like an hour or two, so they can spend the rest of their time enjoying the conference and games.
Why did you decide to use VolunteerSpot?
I was a volunteer in the past for an event and was given a link to VolunteerSpot. I liked the ease of going online to sign-up, and the reminder notifications. I had remembered using it in the past, so I looked into using it for this event. As we are a non-profit organization, and we had no budget for anything extra, the fact that we were able to use VolunteerSpot at no cost was definitely an added bonus.
What’s one piece of advice you have for volunteers or their leaders out there?
For this day, we were never really in one place the entire time. We “moved” around on our campus – from the parking lots, to the conference location, to the classrooms, to the lunch location, then back outside for the games…it made it so much easier to delegate who went where and at what time without having to be with the volunteers since we had to be so spread out. I would suggest making sure your day is as well planned as the volunteers and roles needed for the day to make things go smoothly.
Check out CCBC on Facebook and Twitter @ccbcmdce!
We salute Jo Ann and all the other teachers and volunteers making a difference in their communities. Check out how VolunteerSpot’s Volunteer Software can save you time and stress and boost parent involvement in your school. Take a tour today!
