This FAQ is intended for administrators of pages on the Warwick Volunteers Portal. It covers what can be expected during the annual refresh of volunteering roles on the Portal. The refresh is conducted during early summer, in advance of the new academic year.

What is being done over the next few weeks?

With so many of our students departing university at the end of this term for the next phase of their lives, we’re aware that this will leave you with volunteer lists including names that have left Warwick permanently. To avoid this and to comply with our GDPR commitments to use data appropriately, over the next few weeks we will:

1. Rename all the activities / volunteering roles you are currently advertising as “[title of your volunteering role] 2023-24”; this will provide you with a historical record of the previous year’s volunteering. Any volunteers browsing our website will no longer see or be able to sign up to this role.
2. Create a duplicate of all your currently advertised roles which is identical in every way except that it does not yet have any volunteers signed up to it. This will simply be named “[title of your volunteering role]” and students will be able to sign up to it as soon as it is created.
3. Any student who joined your project very recently (in the last 3 months) will be automatically signed up to the new version of your role
4. We will send a message to every student volunteer signed up to your 2023-24 role encouraging them to join the newly-created role if they wish to continue volunteering with you in the next academic year

I still want to get in touch with volunteers from 2023-24, can I do this?

Absolutely. All the data is still there, you’ll just need to look for your role title with “2023-24” next to it to access your volunteer list from the academic year that’s just finished.

Can I do anything more to encourage last year’s volunteers to sign up to the forthcoming year?

We will write to them, but if you also wish to reach out to them via your usual communication method, that would be great. You may also wish to reach out to them again in late September as a reminder ahead of the new academic year.

What if we’re not recruiting for that volunteering role in 24-25?

That’s absolutely fine; if you let us know before the end of June then we’ll still retire your role for ’23-24, but won’t create a fresh one to take its place for '24-25. If you decide to close the role later, you can do this at any time via the Portal.

What if we’re still doing the volunteering role in 24-25 but the details will change?

You can make any changes you wish to the new role at any time via the Portal.

I have some new volunteering roles I want to advertise, can I do this?

Yes, you can create new volunteering roles at any time. To avoid duplicating and retiring roles that have only just been created we will put a pause on approving any new ones over the next few weeks, but we will pick them up again as soon as we’ve finished this process.

What about the new Expenses field?

This field has been added in the last few months, meaning that not all currently advertised roles currently indicate whether expenses are paid or not. Where an existing role has already supplied information, this will automatically be duplicated for the new role. Where a role is being duplicated from one that did not say whether expenses are paid, the new role will default to indicating that no expenses will be paid. You can update this field at any point with the correct information.

I have other questions

We’re very happy to help; send us your question to volunteers@warwick.ac.uk and we’ll get back to you as soon as we’re able.