Checklists and Guidance

Establishing a Baseline for Measuring Change
The CommunityCheck Checklist

At the heart of your CommunityCheck project is the Checklist. It's main function is to help determine the current practices within the organisation that you are checking. Establishing this baseline or starting point is important for determining what improvements can be made as well as tracking progress towards making these improvements.

In addition to the General Details and the Introduction sections of the Checklist there are three major sections of the Checklist. These are Your Organisation and the Local Community; Your Organisation and Resources; and, Your Organisation Management, Training and Initiatives. Each of these three sections is further divided into more specific categories which you can explore more fully by downloading the complete checklist from the tools section to the right.

When an organisation or business contacts CommunityCheck you will need to do the following:

Contact the organisation and ask if they have any questions about the project. Arrange a time for a CommunityCheck and make sure that the organisation's representative knows:

a) It will take up to two hours

b) Someone who knows about the running of the organisation needs to be present at the Check.

c) There will be volunteers assisting on the CommunityCheck.

Get all the contact details – name, address, telephone number and e-mail address from the organisation contact and save them where you can easily access them.

E-mail/Post the Checklist to the organisation representative, ask them to read through the Checklist (but not fill it in). In the e-mail/letter confirm the date and time of the visit.

Send out an e-mail to the volunteers about the Check with the time, place and location. Once volunteers have confirmed (usually take 1 or 2 vols) then send them the details including the coordinators contact telephone number and a map of the area with the place highlighted.

Day before the visit

Arrange to get to the Check ½ hour early and meet the volunteer/s. Talk through which sections everyone is asking and check that everyone is happy.

Meet the organisation's representative(s) and introduce volunteers, ask to find somewhere quiet to sit. Go through the Checklist and ask as many questions as possible!!

At the end of the Check ask the org rep if they have any other areas that CommunityCheck could research for them, make a note of these.

Additionally, this would be a good opportunity to explain to the organisation the role of the CommunityCheck Champion who can provide continuing support. Explain that Champions are usually professionals with experience in resource management or experienced checkers with additional training. Offer to assign a Champion to the organisation if they feel it would benefit them.

· Building, green space and harmful substances are other things to be aware of.

Once the visit is complete, the next step is the scoring of the organisation and writing of the report. These are covered in the Reporting section of this website.

At the initial Check remind the organisation's representative about the ReCheck and reassure them that they you will contact them for the ReCheck in 6 months. It may also be useful to do this again when the report is sent.