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Workshop Notes: Build and Sustain an Effective Volunteer Team

We were lucky to have Phil Hartwick from Predator Free Porirua visit us last week to run a workshop on building effective volunteer teams.

In a previous career, Phil was a leadership coach and facilitator—and it showed. He “workshopped us” pretty hard and shared practical tips and tools for running workshops ourselves. Why does that matter? Because, as Phil put it, having a strong coordinator team is essential.

We kicked off with an Appreciative Inquiry:

  • What are we doing well?
  • What could we improve?
  • What do we want from today?

It’s a refreshing approach—focusing on strengthening what works, rather than just fixing what doesn’t.

From there, we explored the Stop, Start, Continue method, a simple but powerful framework for giving constructive, actionable feedback:

  • Stop – what do we need to stop doing?
  • Start – what should we begin doing?
  • Continue – what’s working well?

We then dug into the difference between a group and a team. The reality? Many of us are still groups:

  • A team is stronger than the sum of its parts
  • It’s about collaboration
  • It’s aligned around shared goals
  • It brings out the best in each other

This led into the core focus of the day: the role of a coordinator team. Many groups don’t have one—often because they’re still operating as groups rather than teams. One person organising everything isn’t a team, and it’s not sustainable.

A coordinator team can take on key roles such as:

  • Planning and defining the “why”
  • Raising awareness and growing the group
  • Making it easy for volunteers to find and join

We also took a useful detour into volunteer motivation. A common question is: how do we motivate volunteers? Phil’s answer—mostly, you don’t. People arrive motivated; our job is not to demotivate them!

Some practical tips:

  • Ask why they’re here, and what they want to do (not just what they’re good at)
  • Check in regularly
  • Ask for feedback—what do they want to be involved in?

Leadership came up often. In many small groups, one person carries most of the load. While understandable, this can unintentionally push others away or lead to a “just tell me what to do” culture. Delegation, letting go, and creating space for others are critical.

So how do you bring people in?

  • Start by asking for help
  • Offer small, manageable tasks first
  • Create space—don’t do everything yourself
  • Allow room for learning (and even failure)
  • Transfer ownership and set clear boundaries
  • Think about how to make yourself redundant

One simple but effective approach: instead of asking people to take on big roles, start with “Would you like to…?”

Launch Kit

Another topic we discussed and workshopped is the need for a set of resources, or a “launch kit” that would help new groups get established, or older groups set in place some new procedures. Here’s a summary of what could be in that kit …

  1. A vision document, your “why”, goals etc
  2. Operational plan. What we do, where we do it, how we do it, governance, group structure, meeting times etc
  3. Funding plan. Funding options, contacts, sample plans
  4. Sample Budget
  5. HR. skills and experience needed on the team, what roles required, what commitment required, volunteer management
  6. Key contact list – Council contacts, mentors, other groups etc
  7. Permissions and agreements sample forms
  8. Technology document. What to you, how to use it
  9. Communications plan. What, how, and who?  
  10. Health and Safety plan
  11. Training and Induction plan and documents  
  12. Equipment and resources. What do we need, where to buy, or build, suppliers etc
  13. Trapping guides

This looks like a daunting list! But some of these will be brief, or part of a wider document. And many of them are “templates” that you would fill in the blanks. Imagine how much time a new, or existing group, could save, and the headstart they would get.

Work Areas within a Predator Free team

We then moved onto another exercise identifying roles or skills need in an effective Predator Free team. Again, the list looks daunting, but many of the tasks could be carried out by the same people, it’s not one task per person.

  1. Project planning
  2. Administration
  3. Finance
  4. Health and Safety
  5. IT and Technology
  6. Operations
  7. Funding
  8. Training and Induction
  9. Data analysis
  10. Inventory management
  11. Partnership and stakeholder engagement
  12. Communications
  13. Marketing
  14. Technical advisor
  15. Legal

Decision Making

We wrapped up with four-quadrant decision-making, recognising that in volunteer groups, how decisions are made really matters:

  1. Executive – I decide
  2. Consultative – we discuss, I decide
  3. Participative
    • Voting (often creates winners and losers)
    • Multi-voting
    • Consensus (not unanimous, but supported by all)
  4. Delegative – you decide

Consensus is usually the goal: we may not all agree completely, but we agree to support the decision once it’s made.

Overall, it was a great day—challenging at times, but full of practical ideas. Plenty to reflect on as we think about how to build stronger, more effective teams.

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Lawrence
Author: Lawrence