[farkhandas]

MEMO TO: ALL STAFF, COMMUNITY COORDINATORS, VOLUNTEER COORDINATORS, ATHLETE REGISTRARS & DATABASE ADMINISTRATORS

Greetings,

I hope this email finds everyone well. It is with great pleasure that I would like to introduce (and in many cases re-introduce) Jay Boutilier to all of you.

Jay will be joining our Membership Services department in the position of Support Coordinator. In this position Jay will be working on a team with Farkhanda Shahid, Membership Services Administrator and will support the activities and membership processes of Special Olympics Communities across the province.

Jay is no stranger to Special Olympics Ontario, having spent the last year and a half working with the GTA District to support the on-boarding of new volunteers and athletes. Before arriving at Special Olympics Ontario, he had previously been Canadian Sales and Services Manager for Kaplan Test Prep. Jay originally hails from Cape Breton, and has an LL.B. from Dalhousie University and an MBA from Saint Mary’s University. In his spare time, he has a passion for hiking and genealogical research.

Adding Jay to the team is a key step for us at Special Olympics Ontario, as we move to centralizing parts of the on-boarding process with the aim of lightening the administrative load for communities across the province. Jay’s previous experience in customer service as well as hist time with Special Olympics in the GTA and his existing knowledge of the Membership Portal make him ideally suited to this challenge.

This has been a big year for Special Olympics across Canada with the introduction of a new membership portal and database, the creation of self registration and program leader portals, and the introduction of tools to facilitate endorsement and registration for competition and other events.

Special Olympics Ontario certainly recognizes that this period of transition has brought with it challenges as we move to full adoption of the new system. We also recognize that a new national system brings with it the need to change some processes and where possible standardize and streamline some of these functions.

 

The position of Support Coordinator is being created as one of many steps to address these specific challenges. In this new role Jay will have responsibilities for:

Membership Services Support for New Members (New Volunteers, Athletes, Families) who require assistance registering and connecting to programs.
Administrative / Systems Support for Communities & Program Services – this will include providing support to Data Administrators, Community Coordinators, Volunteer Coordinators, Athlete Registrars and Program Leaders to help navigate the new systems and assist with technical challenges as they arise.
Membership Services Support for Onboarding and Business Processes – This will include a review of the processes relating to Volunteer onboarding and management including Reference Checks and Police Screening in order to automate and simplify this process for volunteer coordinators and database administrators moving forward.
Over the next few weeks you can expect to see Jay taking an increasing role in providing direct support to requests made through our support site and a larger role in day to day communications with Membership Services. You will also notice over the next month or so a gradual shift away from District Developer led support for new members or your Membership Services/Portal questions toward a Centralized Support Lined housed at the Provincial Office.

You can also expect to hear more from Farkhanda and Jay, over the next little while, as they prepare to roll-out centralized processes & tools for handling common functions such as volunteer reference checks and police screening with the goal of decreasing the administrative burden on staff and volunteers.

We know there may be some hiccups along the way and we appreciate your patience as these supports come online. That said we see the addition of dedicated support along with new support resources as an important step towards improving the experience of both new and existing members.

Welcome aboard Jay, we’re very glad to have you with us!

Thank you as always for your commitment to Special Olympics Ontario.

Sincerely,

 

James

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James Noronha

Program Director

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Special Olympics Ontario

65 Overlea Blvd, Suite 200

Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M4H 1P1

Tel 416 447 8326 ext. 240

Cell 647 297 2267

Fax 416 447 6336

Email jamesn@specialolympicsontario.com