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Reception Team

The reception team is a volunteer team who help manage the front desk and assist with administrative tasks during office hours. 

Responsibilities

  1. Answering the phone and taking messages
  2. Responding to voicemails
  3. Updating check-ins
  4. Creating name tags
  5. Assisting with Admin Support

Answering the Phone

  1. Make sure you have a pen and the voicemail message book.
      • Ensure the card stock insert is behind the most current page so that the pressure paper doesn't bleed through
  2. Answer the call: “This is _____ at Foothills Unitarian. How can I help you?”
      • If they say their name, write it down immediately. If you don’t fully hear or understand it, you can write down what you hear and clarify later.
      • (If you have PCO access only) Searching the first 2 letters of their first & last name into PCO will generally bring up their profile if they are in our system. Sometimes this takes a little guessing and it’s okay if you can’t find it, it may just help you understand who you’re talking with
  3.  Determine who they want to talk to/what their question or concern is. Some questions you will be able to answer & help with, some you will not.
  4. People will ask “is ________ around, I would like to speak with them” but unless someone is immediately accessible/nearby, we generally don’t forward calls because we only have the one phone. You can say “It looks like ________ is in a meeting right now, can I take a message or answer any questions for you?”. Callers are generally agreeable to this. People in the office appreciate this as well as most of them are not prepared to answer the phone at any given time.
  5. Make sure to take notes while listening to their call
  6. If someone is asking to speak to someone with no context, you can ask “What does this pertain to?” This will help you discern prospecting calls 
  7. Generally, folks are asking for:
    1. Pastoral Care
      This includes speaking with our caring team but can also include assistance finding social services (ie food banks, housing assistance, etc.)
      If all the person wants is help getting connected with organizations, provide those for themCare:
    2. Housing:Housing
        Assistance:
        • Family Housing Network
          https://www.familyhousingnetwork.org/
        • Habitat for Humanity
          https://fortcollinshabitat.org/
        • Rainbow Villages (LGBTQ+ only)
          This one is a Foothills affiliated group but a little harder to provide direct resources for as they are small. We do not immediately give people who we do not know access to this group as this is a very sensitive group dedicated to helping queer families move to safer states. Take down the callers information and give it to Lauren F or Caitlin.
    3. Food:Food
        Assistance:
        • Mobile Food Market 
          We host these guys every other week at 1pm, on 1st & 3rd Sundays
        • Larimer County Food Bank
          https://foodbanklarimer.org/
        • Vindiket Foods 
          This is Not an official Foothills community partner but I like this one personally.
          They are a food rescue that works on voluntary donations only and is run mostly by volunteers
          https://www.vindeketfoods.org/
    4. Community
        • Invite them to engage in our church.
        • Lauren F is our newcomer and engagement coordinator and will be able to help them. Tell her we got a call and give her their information. Give the caller her email: lauren@foothillsuu.org
        • If the person needs more than access to our resources, direct them to our caring team and inform Elaine of the situation. Do you best to be patient and kind with these folks, they are generally having a bad day
    5. Assistance adjusting their pledge/donation
        • Anyone on the admin team (Caitlin, Jenn, or KatieKatie) can help with this
        • Take down their information changes, full name, and phone number. Double check that you have the correct details by repeating them back
        • Tell them you will communicate the changes to our financial team and that they will be receiving an email shortly 
    6. Information on our Small Groups & Events Registrations:
      • People are often looking for groups or info about groups that we host. SometimesTake thisdown answertheir isinformation simplyand addingwhich groups they are asking about. If they don't know what type of group they are looking for, we have groups pertaining to:
        • community caring, social justice, reproductive justice, climate justice, LGBTQ+ justice, racial justice, spiritual development, processing grief, and community connection.
      • Give their information to the Groups Coordinator (Caitlin) and let them know they will be reaching out soon.
    7. Space Rentals
      • If they are a small group leaders, direct them to the groupGroup theyLeader wantHub toon beChurch a part of.
        Sometimes a group is closedCenter and youpass havealong tothe tell them that. Other times it is unclear and you will need to reach outinformation to the groupGroups lead to confirm if it is no longer openCoordinator.
      • SpaceIf Rentals
        Askthey themare whatfrom theiran eventexternal needsorganization are,(i.e. takenot notes,a andFoothills communicatedGroup thoseLeader), things to Jenn & Caitlin
        Directdirect them to our rental request page on our website.
        website: https://foothillsuu.org/reserve/
        Tell
        • This form does include information about pricing once the space and time has been inputted. The estimated cost can be found at the bottom of the web page.
      • We do not offer our space to external groups for free, though some may ask. We are a non-profit so all of our rental income goes directly to our operating costs and is part of how we plan our budget.
      • Let any external rental requester know that our Rental Manager (Jenn) will reach out to them Jennsoon willwith helpmore sooninformation after they have submitted their form.
    8. General Comments/Questions
      • Where can I watch an old service
        Websiteservice? command
          chain:
        • Our menuold services can be found in Church Center
          • Click More >Watch/Listen> Click Watch ServicesWorship >Fill Outselect Form>any recent service or series you would like to watch
        • You can watchalso servicesfind now
          Theoreticallythese theyby aregoing alsothrough our website:
          •  Click Menu> click Watch > scroll to the bottom of the page to where it says "Watch On-Demand" > click "On-Demand Worship Library" > Click on Youtubethe butseries I> amselect notwhich sureservice howyou that’swould functioninglike rn
            Canto Iwatch
            • have
          a
        • A copy of the sermon
          Yes! Scriptscan arealso be found inusing servicesthese andcommand Sermonschains can- beit putis intodirectly their own documentattached to readeach oversermon later
          Take down their email and name and send ituploaded to themChurch onceCenter
          • you’re
        done
        • with the call 
        Do you guys have x type of program/group
        Honestly, easiest way to do this is to look up a keyword in Groups that they say if you don’t know
        ie - justice, environment, climate, lgbt, lgbtq, etc.
      • This was really cool and I liked it
        • Make a note of who says it, thank them for letting you know, and post it in FTW basecamp group.
      • Podcast
        • Our podcast is on hiatus for the moment. We want to it come back soon, we’ve just had a lot of staff changes which makes it challenging
    9. Music
      We
        are
      • Our currentlycurrent interviewingMusic candidatesDirector is Sophia Miller who is based in NYC and manages a whole team of musicians
      • Our current Choir Director is Benjamin Hanson. 
        • Choir meets weekly on Wednesdays from 6:30pm until 8pm in the Sanctuary. Anyone is welcome to findjoin theat oneany whotime
          • most
        appropriately
        • fits
      our
      10. team and vision
      Sophia will be with us until 9/5. Benjamin will temporarily help lead music 9/8-9/29
      https://foothillsuu.org/2024/07/music-update/
       
    10. Staff changes
      Keep it vague.
      “Unfortunately we just weren’t a good fit”
      “We are in the process of interviewing and hiring new candidates. We hope to have the position filled soon”
    11. Prospecting Calls
      Be nice but tell them no
      It doesn’t matter how much they push the answer is no
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