Trick or Trainers


Ok, so you've got 500 volunteers. That's a lot. Should be a piece of cake to train them, right? Yeah....not so much.

 

Trick or Trainers

In addition to your volunteer door-knockers, your volunteer sign-in captains, and your zombies (volunteer recruiters), you're going to need a whole bunch of volunteer Trick or Trainers. We recommend about 1 trick or trainer for every 5 volunteers. That's also known as a 1:5 ratio. So, let's try this out: if you have 100 volunteers, then how many trainers do you need?...20? Yes! That's right! You learn so fast! The force is strong in you.

 

What the heck is a Trick or Trainer?

A Trick or Trainer is a volunteer who commits to come to one training before Trick or Vote. You'll train them on the basics of nonpartisan canvassing, go over the day's schedule with them, and prepare them to lead a training for a group of about 5 volunteer canvassers. Depending on the size of your event, you should plan to have between 1-3 pre-event trainer trainings. Here in Oregon, we plan to have 3 trainings in the 3 weeks before the event to train our trainers. Choo Choo!

 

Here's what you'll want to do:

  1. Figure out how many trainers you'll need. Remember that ratio? Oh yeah, and the rule of halves still applies.
  2. Set your trainer training dates. We suggest doing these before the event itself. We also suggest you have an all-trainer training on the day of trick or vote, to make sure everyone's on the same page
  3. Recruit your Trick-or-Trainers. Tap your zombie network, and recruit reliable people that you can count on to show up.
  4. Develop Your Training. Here's the one we used in 2006, there's some good stuff in there.  Trick or Vote Trainer Presentation.ppt. And here are a few things this training should not fail to cover:
    1. Schedule of the Event
    2. How to find their team. We suggest signs like these ones over on the right.
    3. Sign-in process
    4. Turf Distribution Process
    5. Materials Overview
    6. Basic Canvass Training
  5. Give the trainings, and get feedback
  6. Re-convene Trick or Trainers on the day of the event. Make sure everyone's head is screwed on straight