Volunteer Spotlight

VOLUNTEER SPOTLIGHT

Carol Gengler

   Carol Gengler has been volunteering with Free Rein since September 2010.  She started volunteering because her sister was volunteering and she told Carol that she thought she would like it.  After all, Carol loves both horses and kids.
    Her favorite part of being at Free Rein is the wonderful atmosphere.  She loves Sandy and Lisa and feels that there is a "wonderful camaraderie".  She is always impressed with how often she hears volunteers offering to help others as everyone gets ready for class.
     If you know Carol, you know she loves to bake. All of us are beneficiaries of that talent as Carol brings something yummy with her every time she comes. The homemade cookies sitting by the sign in sheet are from Carol. Something you might not know is that she likes to paint.  She paints ceramic figurines, often giving them as gifts and she also paints garbage cans. Yes, I said garbage cans; for weddings, she has painted garbage cans with the wedding colors so "even the garbage cans are pretty". As they should be.
   Carol's favorite Free Rein horse is Chester (although she thinks they are all sweet). Chester reminds her of her horse, Scottie.  Scottie was a white Pony of America with polka dots. He was the only horse in the pasture to come when called.  She spent many years riding bareback on him.
   Thank you Carol for your dedication to Free Rein. Thank you for your delicious cookies, and thank you so much for sharing your kind spirit with us all!

Whentohelp.com

So... we have amazing volunteers and are quite blessed in that area, but managing the schedule and changes that often occur can be very time consuming so I have been looking at ways to streamline things a bit.

I know that one of the things that happens to our volunteers is that you are sometimes inundated with emails.  This new program will allow us to send emails to specific groups of people based on their training, be it, leader, side-walker or both.  It will also allow you, the volunteers, to talk to other volunteers about switching schedules, or finding subs.  This program helps us keep track of hours so I can stay on top of our different rewards.  How long has it been since you got your star? Well, we will be able to run reports that tell us your hours so I can start thanking you all the way I would like to which is with fun little rewards for hours worked, and doing it continuously and in a timely fashion.

There are many other benefits to the program, one of which is that it is provided free to some non-profit groups.  That is what I am in the process of doing right now, applying for a free year.  There are free programs out there, where you just download the application and use it, but none as comprehensive as this or as secure as this.  In order to apply for free use of the program we have had to fulfill some requirements which is why I have set it up and asked you all to log in and update your information.  They want to see that we are using the program.  We also posted a link on our website so go check it out at freereinspokane.org under the volunteer link.

New technology can always be a little daunting to some people.  I don't want anyone to be worried.  This process will be as gradual as need be for those of you who are feeling a little intimidated and I will have a class or two where we can walk through the different cool things you can do.  Also, this is not a free program; it is not from some free download site. This is a secure, password protected site with options for you to set your privacy levels. It is only because we are a non-profit that we can apply for a free year of usage.

Thank you for your patience as we begin to transition.  Because of you, we are growing and impacting that many more lives.

~ Kristi