Mentors Team Report 2016 01

Report for Freegle Mentors January 2016

Mentors currently have 13 members. Mentors are there to advise new Group Owners in their first 6 months of set up as required and continuously thereafter if still needed, we give support to struggling groups. We are caretakers for groups that have been given up by their owners and we contact groups that are not being actively moderated to offer help.

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.

The New Year began with mentors refining the caretaker configuration that will be used on all of the caretaker groups in the care of mentors. The whole team had the chance to input their own ideas so that we came up with a set of auto emails that we are all happy with. This is now in place on mentor run caretaker groups.

GAT informed mentors that they wished to start a discussion on Development about what they saw as inconsistencies in approaches between GAT and Mentors that they thought needed addressing. They emphasised that it was with concern to the new policy being used for the first time. A long discussion on development followed and policies are still in the process of being changed for both teams enabling us to communicate better with regard to handing groups over to new owners.

It is in Mentors remit that an observer should have been appointed, but so far there never has been a Rep or Board observer on the group. So Mentors have applied to the Board for an observer.

Mentors need to select a new coordinator for the team. Development is currently deciding the mentors remit, this will include the process for choosing a new coordinator for the group.

A new group was launched in Berwick Upon Tweed. Jo knows the new owner and offered to take the group on as their mentor for the first six months. This brings the total groups being mentored for their first six months to three.

We have had one group removed from the caretaker list this month. Amanda Reynolds a member of the mentor team applied for North Warwickshire which was abandoned for some time before it was eventually handed to mentors in Late December. Amanda lives on the border of the group and so the case was discussed taking into consideration the new guidelines and a poll of the team unanimously agreed that Amanda is in the best position to take the group on.

The list below is just for the groups that are currently centrally owned and need new owners and mods. 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.

• Barking and Dagenham
• Bicester
• Blackwater and Yateley
• Brewood, Codsall and Stretton Freegle
• Bury
• Cambridge
• Cannock Freegle
• Chelmsford
• Cheslyn Hay Freeworld recycling
• Dudley – Black country Freeworld
• Durham
• Eastwood
• Havering
• Lichfield Freeworld Recycling
• Llanelli
• Llyn Peninsula
• Scunthorpe
• Skegness
• Skye and Lochalsh
• Taunton
• 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.

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

There are three groups that currently have a mentor on board. (which is compulsory support for new groups.)

We have also contacted several inactive groups and are trying to make contact with the owners so that we can offer some help to get the groups going again.

The mentor team is still looking for new mods to help out. if anyone thinks they may be able to mentor a new group owner or caretake a group that has been handed over for Freegle to run centrally, please contact us at mentors@ilovefreegle.org . All Caretaker groups are added to modtools. It takes a few minutes extra each time you moderate to clear the messages on extra groups.

mentors@ilovefreegle.org

Mentor team

Links:

• Mentor Team Remit
• Previous report Mentors Team Report 2015 12
• Next report Mentors Team Report 2016 02