[Katrina-IT-Volunteers] Advice for newbies, orientation material, city database merged

[David DeMaris]

On Sep 12, 2005, at 12:05 PM, Julie Newton wrote:
>
> **Is there any kind of orientation or should new volunteers expect to 
> hit
> the ground running?  There should be others around that have been 
> working, at least, the previous shift.  I think that's what the Shift 
> Leaders are for.  Try to find someone like that before you get 
> started.  Also as noted in a previous e-mail it's good to know where 
> the chaplains and counselors are located before you start. 
Things are much more organized now - it looks about like what we 
dreamed up a week ago Sunday but didn't have the space to really 
organize.

There is some orientation material on www. austinfree.net, several .doc 
files way down at the bottom past the instructions on how to schedule.  
These were also posted on the wall at the old public terminal location, 
  and (I hope) they are in the 3 ring Volunteer Organization binder . 
This binder is on the table  set up near the (movable) wall/door at the 
public terminal area.   There is a nice organized table of handouts 
now.  There is a large whiteboard where we can advise each other of 
important news of the day/changes.   This is in hall 4 where 
registration was earlier in the week, near the cafeteria entrance.

I also put in the 3 ring binder on Sat.  a 4 page FAQ "unofficially" 
produced by one of the RC volunteers, with all kinds of answers to 
questions you're likely to be asked by people.  It is now 9/12 in 
section tabbed FAQ in the orientation binder.  It may all be out of 
date/misinformation, but it is the best misinformation we have! There 
are dates when each Q/A is true.

One thing we were concerned about earlier and telling people in the 
orientation is apparently no longer true.  The on duty manager in the 
IT control room says that the city database was uploaded/merged to the 
red cross.



>
>  
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David DeMaris  demaris at well.com