I agree. We also belong to Help Exchange and the information helpers and hosts get on each other is wonderful. Hosts can search for helpers as well, so we are not sitting waiting for them to contact us. It really helps to plan and get the odd chores done that you never get to otherwise.
Mary Ellen
Greens Eggs & Ham

I, too, am a host for HelpX as well as WWOOF (thank you Mary Ellen for walking on those eggshells LOL)

The mandatory info required should be enough to give at least a partial picture of a volunteer's/host's makeup (for want of a better word). It is like getting an application for an employment advertisement with a person's name and nothing else.

Recent additions to the WWOOF application, are fields for the volunteer's age and gender IF they fill it in. These should be mandatory fields, along with their country, to be filled in before an application can be sent. Some of the choices should be "radio button" type selections such as "male/female", "smoking/non-smoking/occasional smoker", "vegetarian/non-vegetarian" that are again, mandatory in order to continue with the application process.

It would also be beneficial to see when a profile was last updated.

New registrants who have not bothered to enlarge upon basic application info, should be contacted and encouraged to "bulk up" their profile with more information about themselves, their background and a photo. The way I look at it is - if they can't be bothered to go back and put in more information once their application has been accepted, what kind of effort are they going to put into helping out on our farm.

Noreen

XBar9 are also Helpx Hosts as well as WWOOF host and a few more other Int'l organizations (which shall at this moment remain unnamed) and one of the features i would really like to see on the profile page is a simple
"Yes i would recommend this WWOOFer" or
"No i would not recommend this WWOOFer" but most of all
"This WWOOFer was a no show" because this last comment could help save hosts time and money by deciding to accept a volunteer on previous comments by other hosts and take there own risk should they decide someone who has previous NO SHOWS. If this was in place it would have saved me personnally about 600kms traveling.

Mitch

XBar9

I know a simple recommend - yes/no would be quick but at least now there is a feedback (comment) feature at the bottom of profiles both WWOOFer and WWOOFee.

Of course this comment section is ONLY available IF the WWOOFer fills in all the fields during his/her application process.

At present it looks like all they have to do is put in their name and pay the fee and they get a profile up. It would be nice if admin would screen newly posted profiles (once a week or so?) and send the skimpy ones a request for further details (perhaps even suspending their account until more details are entered?) What are we paying for if not to have profiles on which to help base our decisions?

Noreen

p.s. - Mitch- we too are members of several volunteer/host organizations.
p.p.s. - I also recommend to all volunteers that they join the world-wide organization of Couchsurfing - an alternative to staying in impersonal (and sometimes unhealthy & unsafe) hostels.

This is not helpex, this is the Wwoofing program
I like the surprise factor,I do not need to see a picture,
nor a resumee,neither do I want to see them rated
or judged: what works for us might not work for others
I guess I am an idealist: every body needs a chance(or two, or three)
No expectations,no major disappointments!
They are volunteers for crying out loud,we are not signing any contracts or paying high hourly wages, are we?
As for all the things we like to know, well, we just ask them
Regularly we get a resume presented that makes us roll our eyes
We had a few real losers( no they were not): all they needed was a break,
a second chance,I hope we made a difference!
Ticked off, Willem
Ps we get Helpexers as well( had a very unpleasant experience)

I agree wholeheartedly with Willem

Hello All,

I have been catching up on this post and appreciate all your comments and we do take them into consideration.

We are in further discussion about how the profiles can further assist the matching between a host and wwoofer.

Also, we are working on a "Introduction Package" for hosts to provide some "How to's" and recommended guidelines that the host can choose to customize for their own specifics. The content of this package is being developed based on feedback from posts on this forum, as well as direct discussions with hosts and wwoofers. We will forward the package to all the hosts when complete - expected to be ready in later February.

We would greatly appreciate input from everyone on these ideas. What do you think an "Host Introduction Package" should contain?

Thank you again for using the forum and voicing your opinions.

Becky
Coordinator