With a Touchwood Friends library we want to go a step beyond booksharing and look at ways to actually do the projects in a book.

From "Herbal Remedies in Pots"

Originally, we were just going to have a library of shared books between members with similar interests in learning new skills and doing things ourselves (think crafts, DIY, that sort of thing). It seemed a shame to own all these great books like Herbal Remedies in Pots (featured above), say, and not share it.

Going from just reading to actually doing

But then I got to thinking how it’s just not enough to borrow and lend books. It’s what you do with the book that I think Touchwood should be involved in, since we’re always looking at ways to “get people together to have fun making things better”, as our tagline goes.

I mean, how often do you borrow or buy a non-fiction book thinking somehow you’ll learn its knowledge simply by having it? A kind of learning by osmosis perhaps where you’ll get around to cooking that Moroccan meal if you buy the cookbook. Except you never quite seem to manage it.

Well that’s me, anyway. I love books, adore them. But I also want to start doing more things. I want get around to making the “Nettle Hair Rinse” in my Ultimate Natural Beauty Book or dipping my toe into gardening with the Aloe Bowl project in The Virgin Gardener.

A simple project from "The Virgin Gardener"

When Malcolm and I met up with two other Touchwood Friends, Victoria and Frances, we saw we weren’t alone in this desire. Now the 4 of us are testing out different book cataloguing websites like Shelfari to see which might work best for our needs.

Which virtual bookshelf website is the best?

For myself, I’ve narrowed it down pretty much to GuruLib and Shelfari, which both let you add books to a virtual library, keep track of who you’ve lent your books to, and find similar books. GuruLib isn’t as pretty or slick as Shelfari, but it’s designed more clearly for borrowing and lending books. We’ll see what the other 3 testers think.

I’ve also checked out a website for book clubs and reading groups called BookSprouts, but sadly, it’s pretty buggy and since it’s developed by 3 people in their spare time (oh, can I sympathize), I’m not sure they’re ever going to get around to fixing all the errors. I couldn’t add any books when I tried earlier today.

Also worth mentioning is Scriblio, which is basically taking a public library’s catalogue and turning it into a WordPress website complete with tags and comments and so on. Sadly, because it was developed by librarians it only seems to work with existing library databases, meaning you can’t easily add your books to the catalogue like you can with Shelfari and GuruLib. So for now, that’s out. But hey, if the Orkney Public Library would be interested (hint, hint), that’d be brilliant.

More useful websites coming up

Talking over this project with Malcolm he suggested I write a post about the most useful websites I’ve come across in terms of enabling you to do fun, creative and useful things. So that’s next time.

A lifesaver for those of feeling trapped in meetings

Since I only have a little experience with managing volunteers from back in the days when I ran a door-to-door environmental campaign, I’ve been looking for advice from Getting It Done: How to Lead When You’re Not in Charge and learning a lot (hopefully) about how to make groups work more happily and more effectively.

Here are two key points I thought I’d share:

Tip #1: Make your volunteer role meaty and challenging

Personally, I’ve always thought I should ask a volunteer for as little as possible. I hate feeling like I owe someone something, and asking them to do things for free feels a lot like asking for a favour.

But then I think about how I love when someone asks for my help with something I enjoy doing as long as I feel they appreciate my effort and let me do things the way that works well for me.

So here’s what they suggest a volunteer role should be:

• active
• has something interesting to do
• commands respect from self and others
• demonstrates their abilities

Commands respect, huh. I mean, asking the bare minimum of someone isn’t going to give them a role they feel commands respect, so I’m starting to come round to the idea of offering more of a challenging opportunity, at least for some volunteers.

Tip #2: Empower your volunteers

Getting It Done also recommends that you empower your volunteers by helping them feel they:

• are making a difference
• have a measure of control over what they do
• have some control over where group is going
• are improving their skills

It’s a tall order. It requires that we invest a lot of time and effort in developing and supporting volunteers in exchange for their giving a lot.

Putting the tips into practice

I understand best when I try to put a new lesson in practice, so let me try here.

Example: I’m thinking about how we want to set up a library of books for Friends of the Touchwood Project, and I’ve had someone volunteer to help.

Rather than just give her some small task to do, such as catalogue the books, and then try to do everything else myself, why don’t I create a Chief Librarian role, one where she has the primary responsibility for the books and setup. With input from Directors, she can figure out how we’re going to organise the books (use software like Delicious Library or Shelfari or something else perhaps), if we should charge something, which books we should look into buying.

In creating this role, I’m also thinking about this person’s skills which, as she’s a phD, will most likely include strong research, a love of books and at least moderate organisational skills.

So this librarian role will hopefully appeal. It should be big enough and interesting enough to deliver on the expectations above.

Creating a Volunteer Welcome Pack

Part of supporting our volunteer will be making sure she knows what we’re doing, where we’re at, and is developing her skills and unique role in the team, so we’re putting together a kind of Welcome Pack that includes StrengthsFinder and a Personal Development Plan.

For StrengthsFinder, (see my post about SF previously if you want to learn more about this talents-based survey and personal development tool) I think we’ll see if we can buy the book for each volunteer and then perhaps set up a discussion group with a few volunteers and some of us Directors together. We’ve learned that you get a lot more from StrengthsFinder if you discuss it regularly afterwards.

We’ll also have an overview of Touchwood so she understands where we’re heading and look for opportunities to have her feedback on where we’re going next.

Online survey to assess how we’re doing

Finally, we need to regularly check in to see how we’re doing and where we can improve. I’ve created a very brief survey courtesy of Survey Monkey for volunteers to rate their volunteer experience. I’m sure over time we’ll grow and change this, but it’s a start.

I’m asking volunteers to say how much they agree or disagree with statements like “I feel like I’m making a difference” and “I have influence over where the group is going.” These statements are taken almost verbatim from the Getting It Done book.

You can have a look here if you think you might want to do something similar, though unless you’re a volunteer, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t take the survey since that will skew the results!

Here is the link: http://tinyurl.com/touchwoodvolunteersurvey

Making working with Touchwood fun, rewarding and part of developing yourself and what you bring to the world motivates and inspires Jenni, Malcolm and myself. I can’t wait to see how we get on!

Our challenge was to sit down and at long last come up with a mission and set of values we all felt happy and comfortable with. We had struggled with this several times before, even soliciting advice from consultants and fellow training course attendees, but always ended up feeling deflated, tired and a bit depressed.

So we were determined to do things differently this time. I mean, one of our goals is to help people enjoy life, and that means ourselves too. If we’re bored out of our minds doing something, we’re just not doing it right.

The official agenda

So we scheduled a full day for this and a few other items and here’s what our initial agenda looked like:

• Mission
• Values
• Objectives
• Lunch
• Personal Development Plan
• Dinner
• Plan for Touchwood Project Friends

The actual agenda

Here’s what actually happened:

• Mission brainstorming — what are you most excited about getting out of Touchwood?
• Waving at big canoe on the sea, watching porpoises cavort for 5 minutes and laughing
• More mission brainstorming
• Tossing a ball outside in the sunshine for 5 minutes and laughing
• Lunch of freshly dived scallops (thanks to Jenni) and wild picked fat hen (Rachel and Jenni), cooked by Malcolm
• Personal development plans done!
• Discussion of costumes to be created for Harry Potter film premiere and laughing
• Values done!
• Frisbee and ball for 5 minutes and laughing
• Mission statement done!
• Impromptu BBQ, lighting of sparklers and much rejoicing at all we achieved

The main thing I learned from yesterday is that meetings don’t have to be, and shouldn’t be, dull and dry. Loosening up, having some fun, and perhaps most importantly, laughing, gets your creative and analytical juices flowing. We all felt we had a far more productive meeting — and crucially, we felt energised at the end of the day rather than drained.

An easy way to get more creative

Not everyone wants to play ball with their colleagues, but what about just using some coloured markers?

When we were drafting our Values, we used several colours of dry erasable pens (TUL brand — outstanding colours) and a dry erase sheet. Each of us grabbed a few different markers and wrote down key words we had brainstormed earlier as a list, grouping them by concept. We needed a way to reduce a list of some 30 values into 5 or 6.

All of us wrote down some of the words, putting them into different groups that seemed to relate to each other. Then each of us drew a little icon to illustrate that value group:

Writing in colours and even drawing a bit

It was then surprisingly easy to see what our values distilled down to, and the icons helped us grasp the concepts much faster and more easily than words.

Sure, I felt a bit shy about drawing like a 5 year-old. But I tell you, get a few brightly coloured markers in your hand and you just can’t help but have a bit of fun.

Coming up with our values felt effortless and easy for the first time ever.

So because of our success yesterday, we deliberately are making play and enjoyment a central part of how we operate. We’ll be putting it in our Operations Manual to encourage these moments of craziness, or “Happy Breaks” as Jenni calls them.

The science behind the effectivess of fun

Lest you think this is all wooly, touch-feely stuff, let me tell you there’s solid science behind incorporating playfulness into something as conservative as board meetings.

Thought-provoking

As Daniel Goleman explains in Social Intelligence, anxiety, worry, stress and fear all inhibit thinking well and creatively. We “frazzle” under pressure. On the other hand, research done by neuroscientist Antonio Damasio shows you think better when you’re in a good mood, with greater speed, accuracy and creativity.

So having fun, enjoying yourself and not worrying helps you be more productive AND end the day feeling good.

Laughter and getting your staff to connect

Another benefit of introducing a bit of play is that people bond much faster when they share a laugh.

Social Intelligence mentions an experiment where one person had to talk through a straw while directing a blindfolded person to toss a Nerf ball back and forth. Every time, the subjects collapsed into guffaws and laughter, and when polled later, reported an immediate sense of closeness and rapport, in direct contrast to the groups who did the same experiment minus the straw and blindfold and who never smiled or laughed.

Laughter smoothes the way for people to connect — especially those who don’t know each other well.

This is where we Adult Recess takes place

This is the outdoor space next to our meeting room where we step outside to have a quick ball toss or frisbee session (very badly thrown).

I hope all this will inspire you to think about ways to have more fun the next time you’re faced with a meeting.

As always, we’d love to hear your suggestions on what works for you or how well you feel you incorporate play into your daily life.

Now back out to the sunshine!