Hello Dear Division 1307 volunteers.
I first of all want to thank you for your patience as all of the changes in VMS were taking place. All updates have now been completed.
A special thank you to our Headquarters staff who were instrumental in making this change happen.
I would also like to apologize for the many, many VMS Notifications emails you have received over the last few days.
The large multi-shift events for Canucks Hockey and Warrior Lacrosse have now been dissolved, and each game is now its own event. All past hours and attendance have been transferred and re-awarded (with travel time), double checked and cross referenced with the duty summaries sent after each event.
This means that now all of those events show up correctly in the VMS calendar, and that it also shows which games really need more volunteers to sign up. I have been doing my best to attend as many as I can, but with my current injury, it has been a bit harder to come with the physio appointments and such. I can also speak for many of the officers who have been working very hard in the background to make sure that our divisions continues to thrive and provide the best possible care to our patients at the arena.
As each game is now its own event, you will no longer need to look for future games in your “my events” tab. To sign up for these events, please do so like any concert, or other event. Simply click on the event for the game you wish to attend and you will be in.
This also means that it is now considerably harder to share those events with other divisions as they each individually need to be shared. This means we need you now more than ever to step up and sign up to event (preferably before 48 hours prior to the events).
Believe me your efforts and sign ups do not go unnoticed, neither by me, nor by our Community Services Manager and Lower Mainland Area Officers who count on us to continue to make SJA stand out above all else, and fly our colours proudly as we help to support St John BC and Yukon by fulfilling the contract with our Rogers Arena counterparts.
A quick reminder that, like all of our events, emails may not be sent to confirm attendance. If you have signed up for an event, please show up.
When you see “pending” it just means that the hours for the event are pending not that you have not been confirmed.
This is automatic process and does not show travel time yet, and after the event is complete, one of the officers goes in, and manually compares the attendance sheet in VMS with the duty summary, then approves the hours with travel time. This is why sometimes it can take a day or 2 to show the hours move from pending to your yearly total.
Lastly, you may have seen a lot of names/numbers get removed from our WhatsApp group recently. This is all volunteers who were unable to maintain their minimum commitments to Division 1307, and St John Ambulance (by a lot). As we are still capped, we cannot afford to keep volunteers who are unable to volunteer their time to events. Letting volunteers go is not remotely one of my favourite occupations, but the hope is that by making some space, we can recruit more volunteers to help staff the events. Please don't worry, no one will be removed from the division without multiple conversations, but we are keeping an eye on those who consistently don't do enough hours or their online training. This does not include those who have special arrangements with the division, all we ask is for communication as this goes a long way.
We hope you enjoyed your 2023 hour certificates, Once again, congrats to all of the recipients featured in this video: https://sjarogersarenaoper.wixsite.com/home/post/congratulating-all-2023-volunteer-hour-certificate-recipients
Sincerely,
Philippe Lurol, MStJ,
Primary Care Paramedic
Divisional Superintendent
Division 1307, Rogers Arena Operations
St John Ambulance BC/Yukon