PCUG Office and Centre Administration

Overview of Volunteering at the PCUG Centre

Volunteering at the PCUG Centre is about supporting the needs of PCUG members, whether by phone, in person, email, or snail mail. This may be actioned at the centre or remotely via our e-help support. The aim is to keep our facilities accessible as long as administratively feasible. With the appropriate support and training, it can be a very rewarding experience – the rewards of course being totally individual.

In brief, opportunities are available (details in next section) for:

• Communication Administration support manning the desk for managing member enquiries by in person, or by phone; and e-help
• Background Administration support, such as data entry, filing
• A Supervisory role of the Centre itself so members may use the facilities of the centre
• Maintenance of member amenities, including refreshements
• Centre Cleaning & Maintenance

PCUG Centre Roles

• Communication Administration support manning the desk for managing member enquiries by in person, or by phone; and e-help
  This typically includes
  
  • Open the office, before 10:00am.
  • Perform 'start of day' tasks to prepare for the day.
  • Answer phone calls from members (inclunding any 101 messages).
  • Record in Log Book queries from members and their resolution.
  • Update PCUG database and TIP accounts based on payments (cheque, creditcard and cash) received. Record payments in Daily Summary (excel) file.
  • Process 'Direct Credit' payments made into PCUG's StGeorge account.
  • Update the statistics form during the day.
  • Perform 'end of day' tasks after 2:00pm, to finish off the day.

• Background Administration support, such as data entry, filing

• A Supervisory role of the Centre itself so members may use the facilities of the centre

• Maintenance of member amenities, including refreshements

• Centre Cleaning

Main reasons people contact the centre

• renewals for TIP and PCUG membership, whether by cash, cheque or eftpos
  
• training or media room use & bookings
  
• new membership enquiries with questions about what our club offers. Callers of this nature are usually after a specific thing, ie training, or technical support.
  
• seeking advice on a technical problems. While we are not a help desk, we are in a position to refer enquiries to the appropriate web information or support member (or answer the odd question if we can).
  
• open the centre facilities so members may make drop-in use of the computer & net facilities, or pre-arranged use of the media and training room facilities.
  
• supporting those who prefer to access direct human interaction of admin, information, and support services.
  

How is this achieved?

• Taking a responsible and accountable approach to the centre facilities, and finances.
• Taking a respectful approach when interacting with our members.

• This sounds heavier than it really is. A commonsense and ethical approach, and following a few basic guidelines will get you through.
  • centre security with locking and alarm procedures, & letting members access to the centre.
  • cash handling, and transaction recording (using excel)
  • respect when dealing with members, who may be dealing with a variety of frustrations
  • general supervisory role of members using the centre
  • ethical approach to confidential information in the databases.
  • directing people out of the Centre in an emergency. It is not possible to cover all contingencies for this, except to emphasize that again we draw on commonsense, our experience and coping mechanisms to employ basic standard emergency procedures, endorsed by the emergency community and TAMS.

What information and training support is available to assist with confidently and comfortably achieving the above?

Office Wiki

• The web-based staffer online information manual is a virtual document with quick links to step-by-step support info and location photos.
• This information may be edited by any our current PCUG Centre Volunteer, or feedback may be directed to the Office Manager.

Information sessions

• these are ongoing.
• They may be one-on-one (by arrangement) or group based (per demand or need or just ’cause it is time we had one)
• so please keep a look out for the next session as advertised in the PCUG calendar and newsletter.

Feedback & Interest

• While some days may be quiet, other days are full of PCUG & social activity.
• So it may be a chance to catch up on a good book, do some web browsing, over-indulge in the bikkies, tea & coffee at the centre, meet members or learn something new.

• We welcome interest to our PCUG Centre Volunteer Staffing team.
• Please contact [1] us with your expressions of interest, questions or general feedback.

Karen Adams PCUG Office Manager