memo and narrative report

April 27th 2015

To: Professor Ryan From: Red Raider DeliveriesRE: Student Organization Involvement at Meals on Wheels

Scope and Objectives:We want to help the Lubbock Meals on Wheels Chapter provide more meals to those who are in need by getting student organizations involved and provide incentives for their involvement.

Findings and Observations:Our initial observations and findings include:

Meals on Wheels is an organization in desperate need of volunteers and fundraising Meals on Wheels had more people in need of help but wasn’t able to create more routes until

more volunteers were available to deliver meals. Many student organizations are demanded to get community service hours The orientation schedule has few time slots, which makes it difficult to attend the orientation,

especially for students that go to school and have part time jobs. There are many different opportunities for students to get involved; for example fundraising

opportunities or help building homes.

Recommendations:Based on our findings and observations, recommendations,

Meals on Wheels needs to find a better way to get students involved and to communicate with different student organizations

Meals on Wheels needs to better inform student organizations of the need for help in all areas. Provide a simple system for student organizations to take part in Make Meals on Wheels attractive for student organization’s involvement.

Action Items:The following will help Meals on Wheels to get student involvement:

Our group came up with a list of organizations that we were either in or knew contacts in to ask if they would be interested in the opportunity

Let organizations know that not only would they are helping out Meals on Wheels but they would be getting community service hours as well.

We wrote a manual for Meals on Wheels on how to recruit the Texas Tech student body A manual was written for student organizations on how to get involved either with delivering

meals on a certain route schedule or fundraising money for Meals on Wheels

Feedback and Audit:Effects of action steps taken and ways effects of future action can be measured

How many student organizations are interested?Out of 11 organizations contacted we got 6 who showed interest in taking part in this system

Are the new system getting students involved?0 of the organizations have attended orientation

How many routes could be taken care of by student organizations?If 5 out of the 6 organizations complete their orientation that gives a chance that at least one route a day will be covered

Community Service Hours those student organizations will obtain?1 hour for each route completed the amount of hours. For an event put on by Meals on Wheels, it will be dependent on the individual event time and their organization can decide.

Red Raider Deliveries: Zach Allen, Kara Bradshaw Spencer Case, Madison Arbuckle-Burns, BA 3305 Organizational ManagementChad Vander-Linden, and Andrew Gomez. 1 of 84/27/15 Ryan

Red Raider Deliveries Narrative Report

Scope and Objectives

Over this semester, our group has been working in conjunction with Meals on

Wheels with the ultimate goal of producing a good or service that would leave a long

lasting impression on the Lubbock Chapter for Meals on Wheels. Our liaison for the

entirety of the project is Jacob Kirkland. Jacob is the vice president on the board for the

Lubbock Chapter of Meals on Wheels. Jacob advises the chapter on day-to-day

operations, financial ventures, standard operating procedures and business goals. Due to

Jacob’s involvement with the organization it made perfect sense to coordinate all of our

project endeavors and ideas with him. At the beginning of the semester, Red Raider

Deliveries discussed many different concepts that would benefit the Lubbock Chapter for

Meals on Wheels such as a 5K fundraiser, a golf tournament, rehabilitating homes, or

delivering meals for the organization. With meaningful debate our group was able to

narrow down the numerous concepts in to one authentic endeavor. Some of the reasons

that caused the group to lean in the direction we finally choose include: location

coordination issues for the 5K fundraiser, permission for the use of a golf course for the

fundraising golf tournament and Meals on Wheels was able to coordinate the

rehabilitation of homes in need for that specific project. After careful and meaningful

debate Red Raider Deliveries choose to help Meals on Wheels in the manner in which

they requested the most which was delivering meals and covering a full route for the

organization. Our group decided this would be our main objective based on the


premonition that as long as our main objective to the project benefited the organization it

would suffice. After numerous team reports and journal entries Red Raider Deliveries

was informed that a purely community service oriented project was not adequate and the

project must have a meaningful objective based in the business aspect of the Lubbock

Chapter of Meals on Wheels. The group then decided to modify our principal objective to

that of designing a revolving community volunteer pool between the Texas Tech student

body and the Lubbock Chapter of Meals on Wheels and streamlining the orientation

process by which the student body would be brought in a acclimated to the Meals on

Wheels standards and operations. With these new project objectives two focal points

emerged. One focal point was that of recruiting student organizations to take part in the

effort and the other was to create an efficient method of orientating the new Texas Tech

student volunteers that would accommodate to the unique schedules and abilities that

college students and student organizations tend to exhibit. With these two primary

objectives in mind the group began reaching out to student organizations and the staff at

the Lubbock Chapter for Meals on Wheels. It took constant contact and multi-level

discussions with the different organizations that were recruited by Red Raider Deliveries

to arrange the rich sources of volunteers that the group has produced. Each group has its

on unique abilities as well as its own set of needs that need to be adhered to and agreed

upon before commitments are given to participate in the revolving community service

initiative, the lessons the group learned and designed around will be discussed later on in

this narrative. Through thorough development and proper research into the methods of

orientation operations for the Lubbock Chapter of Meals on Wheels the group was able to


conceptualize, modify and streamline the Lubbock Chapter of Meals on Wheels

orientation manual to better serve the various Texas Tech student organization bodies and

accommodate to the unique needs that each of the organizations tend to possess. The

methods in which Red Raider Deliveries was able to accommodate to the needs of the

student organizations in relation to the newly modified orientation manual will be

discussed later in this narrative.

Findings and Observations

While reaching out to the various Texas Tech student organizations that would end

up comprising the pool of volunteers that the Lubbock Chapter for Meals on Wheels

could benefit from, numerous requests that required special attention on the part of the

orientating staff at Meals on Wheels began to surface. It became apparent from the onset

that volunteers from a student body standpoint required a little more attention due to

randomized schedules, administration requirements, and sheer numbers of volunteers.

Whereas the normal volunteer program with meals on wheels tends to handle a volunteer

pool that trickles in on a routine basis, the student bodies that were recruited by Red

Raider Deliveries will come in for orientation at a larger quantity and change from

semester to semester. This requires a more fluid orientation process on the part of the

Lubbock Chapter for Meals on Wheels. Red Raider Deliveries strategized for this

complexity and developed the orientation manual accordingly by advising the orientation

staff to make appearances at student organization meetings and orientate the volunteers

for each organization at their already scheduled meetings. This alleviates the students

from adding any more scheduling burdens to their plate while assuring the staff at Meal


on Wheels a high participation rate in their orientations. Administration requirements that

are due at each orientation regarding paperwork for the students were also addressed in

the orientation manual on both the volunteer side and the Meals on Wheels side. Another

finding and observation the group encountered was the outdated methods in which the

Lubbock Chapter of Meals on Wheels recruited volunteers. The organization has used the

methodology “if it’s not broke why fix it?” for and extended amount of time. With the

streamlining of the recruiting process of Meals on Wheels, the group also recommended

the evaluation on the current recruiting method in relation to current social media trends

as well as more up-to-date recruiting tactics. With these observations and findings Red

Raider deliveries has designed a manual that addresses both the unique needs of

recruiting within a student environment as well as a more up to date recruiting method

that is beneficial to maximizing recruiting efficiency in the modern era of social

networking.

Recommendations

About a week after the orientation session, we talked to Professor Ryan about our

goal of delivering meals. Professor Ryan discussed with us that our goal was simply a

volunteering project and not accomplishing an organizational management project for

Meals on Wheels. He told us that our group needed to reassess and choose a new project.

We all discussed what our new goal should be and readdressed the other options we had

originally thrown out. Our group reviewed the idea of having a golf tournament

fundraiser again. We discussed that each member of the group could talk to 1-2

organizations or companies that could sponsor it and then we would advertise the


tournament around campus and around Lubbock. One member left a message with the

tournament directory at the Rawls Golf Course on campus. They said they would do

everything they could do to make sure the tournament would go smoothly.

During the discussion of the golf course, some members were for it and others

were against it. As a group we couldn’t communicate and come up with an idea that the

whole group was for. Since we had an issue with coming up with a common goal, and

confusion on what exactly Professor Ryan was looking for, we decided to have a meeting

with Professor Ryan. Our confusion was based on the fact that when we would turn in

our assignments, we would receive negative feedback from the Professor and continually

get points taken off, but we didn’t really know why. Since some students had 8 a.m.

classes and others had to go to their jobs, 2 students were able to discuss our problems

within the meeting with Professor Ryan.

After the meeting with Professor Ryan, our group had the idea to create a manual

for Meals on Wheels. Members of our group would get with organizations at Texas Tech

that need volunteers hours, like Gamma Beta Phi, for example. This manual would give

exact directions and information about Meals on Wheels and how to volunteer for the

organization. The exact mission statement for our manual is “to better recruit volunteers

from the Texas Tech student body.” One issue we had with recruiting organizations is

they wouldn’t give us an exact answer if they wanted to work with Meals on Wheels or

not. Fortunately, we had many organizations that wanted to help volunteer for the

organization. These organizations are Phi Upsilon Omicron, Arnold Air Society,

Collegiate 100, Block n Bridle, Meat Science Association, and Gamma Beta Phi.


Action Items

While creating our manual, we didn’t have hardly any issues. We reviewed the

manual twice and made corrections when they were needed. The manual is composed of

a table of contents that consists of 4 major chapters. These chapters include the

Introduction, Defining the Roles of Volunteers, Recruiting Volunteers, and Recruiting

Processes. There was a distinct reason we chose these chapters. We wanted to separate

the roles of volunteers and how to actually recruit the volunteers. It’s important that our

manual was easily accessible and volunteers could find what exactly they need to know

inside the manual and to flip right to it. Meals on Wheels have not stated if they will

actually include our manual within the organization or not. They were, however very

grateful for our help in organizing students to help their organization.

Feedback and Audit

After the semester, our main issues were scheduling obstacles and choosing the

project we all wanted to work on. Our group consists of members who all worked on our

project diligently and together as a team. Communication issues weren’t a problem at all

within our group because we were constantly sending messages within our “Group Me”

conversation if an issue came up. We overcame our obstacles to create a manual for

Meals on Wheels that hopefully many organization leaders will include in their

organization and give Meals on Wheels the volunteers that they desperately need.

Lessons that our group learned were the importance of working as a team and not

individuals in a group. We learned how to communicate with each other and trusting each

other with their ideas and thoughts. Another lesson we learned was how essential it was


to keep in constant communication with our contact. He provided feedback and

information that we were able to gather and put forth for our project and manual. If we

had not been in communication with our contact, then our group and project would’ve

suffered without the advice and feedback from someone within the organization itself.

And lastly, a lesson we learned was how critical it was to preserve the culture of the

organization when creating the manual. This is important because we needed to create a

manual showing how the culture of Meals on Wheels can be combined with other

organizations, while making sure the rules and culture aspects are still intact. After

working on our project, our team can use these valuable lessons learned for future careers

and projects.


memo and narrative report

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