Right now, three members of the Three Rings team – Ruth, JTA, and I (Dan) – are at the Nightline Association conference at the University of Essex in Colchester. It’s always pleasant to get out and network with the volunteers from the Nightlines associated with the Nightline Association, because their volunteer turnover rate – comparatively rapid in the field of emotional support helplines, as a result of their use of student volunteers – means that there are always fresh ideas being presented to the team.
Dan & JTA in the Students Union bar
It’s also great to get in touch with Nightlines because they have the longest organisational experience of using the Three Rings rota management system. Nightlines have been using Three Rings for almost eight years, and some particularly-eager Nightlines have back-dated rota data going back as far as 1998, which affords them the opportunity to derive some fascinating statistics on volunteer composition and the changes in volunteering patterns over more than a decade.
The new Directory List view
It’s also great to be in an environment where the use of Three Rings is the norm, rather than the exception: virtually all Nightline services use Three Rings to manage their volunteer resources, plan shifts, and more, and being in a community of users gives us a great opportunity to show off and get feedback on new and upcoming features, like the new Directory List view, shown above.
Finally, it’s been really quite inspiring to be able to see some of the processes going on within the Nightline movement. As Three Rings started out by helping Nightlines, and all of the Three Rings developers are former Nightline volunteers, it’s been really motivational to see the progress that’s been made by Nightlines and the Nightline Association. There are a lot of exciting projects going on within Nightlines, right now, and it’s particularly good to get the chance to see plans come into fruition that we first saw discussed when we represented Three Rings at Nightline conferences years ago.
A big thank you to everybody who came up to our stand or came to our presentation. It was great to hear your feedback and to find out more about how Three Rings is working for you: so thanks for sharing!