Often, people are surprised to find out just how old Three Rings is! These days it feels like just about everything is possible online, so internet-enabled volunteer management feels like the natural and normal thing to do (especially to us and the many organisations benefitting from Three Rings every day!) – but that wasn’t always the case!
Way back in 2002, when Three Rings began (or at least, when the first version of Three Rings was launched – in fact, Dan had the idea for online rota management as early as the year 2000!), it was seen as a new and exciting thing to switch from a paper rota to a new computerised version.
As we gear up for our 10th Birthday celebration and our 10th Anniversary Conference, and with our 10th Birthday Anniversary Discount year still in full swing, we thought it might be interesting to turn the clock back and speak with one of the people responsible for introducting Three Rings to the first ever organisation it supported!
Liz was coordinator of Aberystwyth Nightline back in 2002, and is still volunteering, these days as a listener at Macclesfield Samaritans. She was willing to share her memories of what life was like before Three Rings – a thing that many organisations who’ve already started using the system quickly find hard to imagine!
The arrival of Three Rings had a hugely positive impact on how we worked at Nightline. Before Three Rings, we were completely dependent on a paper based rota which was kept in our private call centre office. The office itself, and therefore the rota, was only accessible if you were on duty or if you were on campus and requested the building key from a warden. The wardens were always available before the shift to hand the keys over, but were notoriously difficult to get hold of at other times.
We desperately needed a better way of managing the rota. We were an enthusiastic and dedicated team at Aberystwyth Nightline and the same security which protected our anonymity by restricting entry to our offices, also placed barriers in front of us to accessing our own rotas.
The rota was difficult to manage and we were increasingly dependant on dedicated individuals to take shifts at the last minute. There were also a number of instances where we found ourselves chasing up those who had forgotten they were on shift.
It was Dan Q, in his calm and assured way, who first raised the possibility of using a web based rota system. He was a key member of the Aberystwyth Nightline executive team and had already partially developed a system before mentioning it to anyone in any great detail. He was confident that it would work following the development time he had already put into it and it didn’t take much of an argument, if any, to excite the team. Even if it didn’t work, we were hopeful about the possibilities it presented and were keen to try it.
Most members of the exec team, and anyone else in Nightline who was willing to help, got involved testing the system and trialling it before it was launched. With the wealth of individuals involved, there were a number of ideas to further develop the system tried out. Some of these have now been lost along the way;
* The stars which celebrated the number of completed shifts, which quickly became a competition between a few to get the most stars* The icons which took ages to draw, and which tried to cover every possible need a Nightliner could have (I don’t even remember the purpose of the TWO plane icons (1 a generic plane, the other being a Typhoon!)
* The colour scheme and background design which changed with the seasons
And many more.Volunteering with Samaritans today I know there have been many iterations and improvements on the original Three Rings system since those early days, but even then it was a godsend to us. It allowed us greater flexibility and control in both filling shifts and and ensuring a full rota.
I’m impressed every day by the dedication of the Three Rings volunteers in developing a system which is tailored to the needs of individual organisations. It is easy to underestimate how different each Samaritans and Nightline branch works and therefore the differences in their needs which the Three Rings team cater for. Ruth, JTA, Dan, Paul and everyone else who has been involved down the years and today have given so much of their time, over and above the requirements of their day jobs, to develop something which is provided essentially at cost to Samaritans and Nightlines.
It is incredible that the project we were so excited about in 2002, which we hoped would improve the way we worked, has been so successful and that so many others have benefited from it: only the other day I saw an email from Macclesfield floating about saying ‘yet again Three Rings saves the day.’ It made me smile.