Delivering lawn signs to supporters

The delivery pool lets approved Team volunteers bring lawn signs to supporters who requested home delivery. You choose whether to take each request. Passing on one does not count against you.

Open the sidebar and choose Lawn signs → Deliveries. If you have not joined yet, the page shows a Join the delivery pool button; choose it to open the delivery-pool invitation.

Join the delivery pool

The join page shows the name, email, mobile number, and home postal code already saved in your Team profile. Use Update profile if any of those details need changing.

If your profile has a valid Alberta home postal code, its first three characters seed your first delivery area. An area is the three-character start of an Alberta postal code, such as T2K.

1. Type another area in Add an FSA and choose Add area if you can cover more than your home area. Use the X on a saved area to remove it.
2. Read and select the Volunteer privacy pledge. It commits you to using supporter details only for the delivery and deleting any copies afterward.
3. Choose Join the delivery pool.

Your membership shows Pending approval until an organizer approves it. Pending volunteers cannot see delivery requests. Team emails you after the organizer approves or declines the request.

Choose Change your areas in the Deliveries header later to use Save areas, Pause deliveries, Resume deliveries, or Leave pool. Pausing stops new delivery emails and also hides open requests, so you cannot claim anything new until you resume; you keep your current claims. Leaving releases your open claims for another volunteer and ends the membership.

Get fewer delivery emails

If you only want fewer emails, turn them off instead of pausing, and keep claiming on the website. Choose Turn delivery emails off on the same page, or find Deliveries in your notification settings. It has two switches:

• New requests in my areas: a request in one of your saved areas, and again if it is still unclaimed after 72 hours.
• Requests outside my areas: when nobody covers an area, sent to the volunteers who cover another area in the same city or county, or to every delivery volunteer if there are none; and sent to every delivery volunteer when a request anywhere is still unclaimed after 72 hours.

Every request email also has a link that turns off the kind of email you just got. With both switches off you get no request emails, but the queue at /delivery still shows every open request and you can claim as usual. Emails about deliveries you have already claimed, such as the five-day reminder, a delivery returned to the pool, and supporter replies, are not affected by these switches.

Browse open deliveries

Approved volunteers see the queue at /delivery.

• My areas leads with open requests whose FSA is in your saved areas and may show an Elsewhere — no regular volunteer section below them.
• Everywhere shows every open request, including requests in areas with no regular volunteer.
• My claims shows only the deliveries you have taken on, with their deadlines, and nothing else.

Whichever you choose is remembered in the address bar, so a refresh — or a bookmark — brings back the same view.

Before you claim, a row identifies the area and request timing and may show whether notes exist or the request was re-broadcast. It does not show the supporter's name, street, email, phone number, or notes.

See the same requests on a map

Use the List / Map buttons beside the area filters to switch between the two views. The map follows whichever filter you have chosen, so My claims on the map shows only your own deliveries.

The outlined shape is the postal area — the first three characters of the postal code, such as T2K. Each request is one pin, labelled with the last three characters of its postal code, so 0L7 in the T2R area is T2R 0L7. Pins in your saved areas are coloured; every other pin is grey. Choose any pin for that request's details and its own Claim button.

For a request you have not claimed, a pin is near the house, not on it. An open request is drawn within about 500 m of where the public site places it, and its pin has a dashed edge to say so. It is close enough to tell you which neighbourhood it is in: you get the street address only after you claim, read live from the public site, and only you, the delivery coordinators and Team administrators can see it. Where several unclaimed requests are close together their pins are spread out a little, so that zoomed in you can tell them apart, and that spread carries no meaning. A request that has no map location at all is drawn somewhere inside its postal area, also with a dashed edge, and its place there means nothing. Choose a dashed pin to see which kind it is: its box says Within about 500 m of the address or No map location, so drawn inside its postal area. Read the postal code on the pin, and take a pin within about 500 m as a neighbourhood, not an address.

Your own claims are different. Once a delivery is yours you already have the address, so the map pins it where the public site places it, with a solid edge, and labels the pin with the street number. Choose the pin for the full address. If the supporter gave a unit, it is on its own line in bold under the street. If two of your claims are at the same address or next door, one pin is moved a little to the side, so that zoomed in you can choose each.

Some supporters place that pin themselves when they ask for a sign, and then it marks the spot they want you at; for other requests it is where the public site found the written address. The page does not say which, so if the pin and the written address disagree, check with the supporter before you set off (see Message the supporter, below). Some requests have no pin, usually older ones or ones the public site could not place; those are drawn inside their postal area with a dashed edge, and the written address is what you go by. Either way Team never stores the position.

If the map says the pin positions could not load, the requests you have not claimed are drawn inside their postal areas for now. The map does the same without saying so when Team cannot reach the public site, and then every pin, your own claims included, has a dashed edge. Reload the page to try again.

To zoom in on the pins, pinch on a phone or tablet. On a computer, roll the mouse wheel or pinch the trackpad with the pointer over the map, or use the plus and minus buttons in its top-left corner.

The map remembers where you left it. Pan or zoom and the address bar updates, so a refresh — or a bookmark — brings you back to the same view.

Choose any row — anywhere on it, not only the Claim button — to open that delivery's page. This works for deliveries you have already claimed too, so My claims is how you get back to an address you need.

On an unclaimed delivery the page reminds you that claiming commits you to deliver within seven days. Choose Claim this delivery when you are ready. If another volunteer claimed it first, the page tells you that the request is already taken.

Plan a run

When several deliveries are yours at once, choose My claims and then Plan my route. Team works out a sensible driving order for them, starting and ending at the home postal code on your profile, and shows the total driving time and distance.

Start in Google Maps hands that order to Google Maps for turn-by-turn directions. It begins from wherever you are at the time, not from home, so you can set off mid-run.

Google Maps is given each stop's position, not its address. It takes you to that position, but Maps is never told the unit, so it cannot show one. Where a supporter gave a unit, your list shows it on its own line, in bold, under the street — Unit 103, for example — and a note above Start in Google Maps says that Maps shows the building, not the unit. Check the unit in the list when you arrive.

A driving order is worked out for runs of up to nine deliveries. Beyond that the page lists your stops without ordering them — take them in whatever batches suit you, and plan again once a few are done.

Deliveries with no saved position cannot be put in a driving order. They are named under the route so you do not lose track of them — open them from My claims for the address.

If a driving order is not available, the page says so and lists your stops anyway. Nothing is lost; only the ordering is missing.

Use the supporter details

After a successful claim, the page shows Claimed by you and fetches the supporter's name, address, and notes live from the public site. Team does not save those supporter details in its delivery tables.

If the supporter gave a unit, it is on a line of its own, in bold, between the street and the city. A unit made up of numbers and single letters, such as 103, 12B or B, is labelled — Unit 103, Unit 12B, Unit B — so it cannot be mistaken for part of the street. A unit with a word or an abbreviation in it, such as Apt 12, Main Floor or PH2, is shown exactly as the supporter wrote it. With no unit, the address stays on one line.

Under the address you usually get a small map with the delivery marked on it, so you can see which part of the street you are heading for before you set off. It is a picture, not a tool — it does not pan or zoom. Some deliveries have no map, which is normal: older requests, and ones the public site could not place, have no position saved for them. The address is still correct, so use it as you would have before.

• Choose Open in Maps to search Google Maps for the displayed address, unit included. Maps searches for that address; the unit line on this page is how you find the door.
• Follow any displayed delivery note, and keep every supporter detail confidential.

The page does not give you the supporter's phone number. To ask the supporter something, send them a message (see below). If a delivery cannot be completed, choose Report a problem; your note appears on the delivery coordinators' page.

If the public site cannot be reached, the page says the supporter details are not available. Your claim remains in place; try the page again later.

Message the supporter

Once a delivery is yours, its page has a section of messages with the supporter and a button that names them — Message Sam, for example, or Message the supporter when their first name is not on the request. Use it for whatever you need to ask or tell them: where the sign should go, or when you expect to come by.

1. Choose the button. A box opens with the same editor the Inbox uses.
2. Write your message, up to 2,000 characters, and choose Send.

The supporter gets your message by email, from your first name "via Forever Canadian", and answers by replying to that email. Their reply comes to you by email and appears on the delivery page, and you can answer from either one. Neither of you ever sees the other's email address. The supporter can also answer the email that told them a volunteer is bringing their sign, so a message can reach you before you have written anything. That email goes out once you have kept a delivery for 15 minutes, usually within 25, so a delivery you claim and release straight away never sends it.

Under each message you sent, the page says what became of its email: Sending… while it is on its way, then Emailed once it has left Team. Emailed does not guarantee it reached their inbox. If Team already knows the supporter's address does not accept email — an earlier email to it bounced, or they marked one as spam — the page says your message was not delivered.

A reply you have not read yet is marked as new, on the delivery page and on its row under My claims, until you open the page or answer it.

You can send 10 messages a day to one supporter, and 30 a day across all your deliveries. If you reach either limit, the box says when you can send again.

The conversation closes when the delivery stops being yours — you release it, a coordinator hands it back, or it returns to the pool automatically. The page says so at once: you can no longer send, and anything the supporter writes after that goes to the Forever Canadian team instead of to you. If you claim the same delivery again, you get the conversation back. (If you are also a delivery coordinator, the conversation stays open, and you carry on from the coordinator page.) It also closes a week after the sign is delivered, when the request is closed on the public site, or if an administrator closes it.

Messages are deleted 30 days after the request closes; a reply that arrives later is deleted 30 days after it arrives.

If your delivery page has no messages section at all, supporter messaging has not been switched on yet.

Finish, release, or report the delivery

Use one of the three actions on your claimed delivery:

• Mark delivered ✓ opens a confirmation that shows the address, unit included. Choose Yes, it's delivered only once the sign is there: it records the delivery with the public lawn-sign system, emails the supporter that the sign has arrived, and closes the request in Team, after which the address is no longer shown to you. Not yet leaves the claim as it was.
• Release it back opens a confirmation. Confirming returns the request to the pool immediately, with no penalty.
• Report a problem opens a note field for the organizer. Reporting a problem keeps the request claimed.

If a claimed request has not been delivered after five days, Team sends a reminder. If it is still open at the seven-day deadline, Team releases it to the pool automatically and emails you. A request cancelled on the public site also closes in Team, and you do not need to take further action.

Privacy checklist

• View supporter details only after you have claimed the delivery.
• Use the address and notes only to complete that delivery.
• Do not copy supporter details into messages, spreadsheets, or personal notes.
• Delete any temporary copy after the sign is delivered or the request is released.