Flicks and friends volunteer training

Training 2: On the day

Welcoming older guests

The main part of your role is welcoming older people to the cinema and registering their attendance or adding them as a new guest, using membership cards.

Because flicks and friends is so popular, the same older people quite often attend every month. So, you’ll soon start to see the same faces and get to know the regulars, as well as welcoming new guests.

Each older person makes their own way to the cinema and it’s your responsibility to greet them when they arrive, make them feel welcome, register new attendees, scan the QR codes of any existing members to log their attendance and to accept any donations.

Membership cards and managing attendance

As part of your role, you’ll issue and scan membership cards, so we can register older people’s attendance and monitor how many people enjoy our free screenings each month.

New guests

If it’s an older person’s first-time attending Flicks and Friends, you will provide them with a new membership card. You’ll need to:

• Scan the QR code on the new card
• Choose “new” and complete the older person’s details
• Select group location and press submit
• Close the browser
• Let them know a member of the Re-engage team will be in touch soon to fully register them

Guests who have been before, who have a membership card

You’ll need to:

• Scan the QR card on their card
• Select “returning”
• Press submit
• Close the browser

Guests who have been before, and who have forgotten their membership card

You’ll need to:

• Scan the admin card
• Complete the form
• Press submit
• Close the browser

During your first time volunteering at Flicks and Friends, a fellow volunteer will demonstrate how the membership cards work.

Welcoming new volunteers

When someone applies to be a flicks and friends volunteer, the team at Re-engage will contact the existing flicks and friends volunteers to ask if there is space for a new volunteer.

If there’s a space, the team at Re-engage will make sure the volunteer has completed all the necessary checks and training and then contact the existing flicks and friends volunteers to let them know that the new volunteer is ready to start.

The next step will be to contact the new flicks and friends volunteer to introduce yourself, to ask them which flicks and friends they’re available to coordinate or support at, and to talk them through what to expect at their first event.

It’s important that all new flicks and friends volunteers are contacted before they attend flicks and friends for the first time so that they feel prepared. Volunteering with people you’ve never met before can be quite nerve-wracking and your support will go a long way to ensuring that the new flicks and friends volunteer has a positive first volunteering experience.

Keeping in contact with Re-engage

Your goal as a flicks and friends volunteer is to keep flicks and friends running as smoothly as possible. A key part of this is to make sure that Re-engage knows how flicks and friends is getting on by staying in regular contact with Re-engage.

You can contact the Re-engage team by emailing knowledge@reengage.org.uk or by calling 020 7240 0630 (office hours 9am-5pm Monday to Friday).

Donations and cash handling

Older people who attend flicks and friends may choose to make a small donation, though there is no pressure to do so and the event is completely free for older people to enjoy. The group will be given a collection tin to use that is branded. No other receptacle should be used.

After flicks and friends two volunteers must count the donations received together and make a note of the total.

Due to the difficulties in physically getting to a bank to pay the donations in, Re-engage is happy for the volunteers to put the funds in their account and pay it over to Re-engage.  If volunteers are not comfortable doing this, a member of staff will be able to arrange to collect the cash from the volunteers.

If the cash collected cannot be banked on the same day, the donations must be stored safely and securely (not in a vehicle) until it can be banked or collected by a member of staff.

Under no circumstances should any volunteer feel pressured to do this or feel unsafe whilst handling cash collections.