How Camelo helps Whittlesey Christian Church manage an enthusiastic team

Whittlesey Christian Church is based in the beautiful historic building on Broad Street, Whittlesey, UK. As the church holds a variety of activities for the community, keeping track of rotas and keeping people updated was challenging for Richard Bibby, the church leader. After discovering Camelo, he and his team have gained peace of mind knowing they have something in place that meets their needs

How Whittlesey Christian Church began and their vision

Whittlesey Christian Church first began operating as a charity and governed by a trust deed in 1979. The vision of the church is simply to reach people from the North, South, East, and West with the message of the Christian gospel.

A vision of the fires propagating across a map of Europe was given to the former minister in 1977, with sparks from one fire igniting other fires. It was a vivid picture of the message of the good news of reconciliation with God spreading like a fire. It's an exciting vision which is coming to pass in these days.

Physical rotas and communication were cumbersome

“I'm still finding my way managing the team, who are extremely supportive and enthusiastic.”—Richard shared

The church hosts midweek events such as a community social get-together with refreshments, which is very popular with 50-60 attending regularly. The local table tennis club is hiring the premises with three to four sessions weekly. Arts courses are also held on the premises from time to time, run by a Cambridge-based charity organisation.

“A challenge has been keeping track of the who, what, which, when, and where. Who's doing what, when and which parts of the building are being used, where team meetings are being held, and where I am planning to be.”

Before using Camelo, the church used paper and pen to manage rotas. It’s a challenge for them to keep track of physical rotas and remember to tell people. Inevitably, if plans are changed, misunderstandings happen. As other leaders like to schedule their teams too, mistakes while scheduling happened.

They realized the need for finding a better system for scheduling and communicating with people.

Discovering how convenient scheduling can become

Richard found out about Camelo while browsing on AppStore

At first, it took trial and error for him to get the mix of schedules and locations in place on the app. But he was impressed with the flexibility of Camelo. The google calendar export is a big benefit to him, as it pulls all of the schedules together into a single view.

Once he got hold of how the app works, he started to see how convenient scheduling has become. He started to feel the peace of mind that something is in place and meets their needs.

How Camelo helps the Whittlesey Christian Church

Richard and his team love the web app and open shift feature on Camelo.

It’s easy to assign and re-assign people using the drag-and-drop scheduler on the web app.

“The web interface makes it very easy to quickly re-assign roles between people with drag and drop.“

Team leaders can also add shifts using the smartphone app if they don’t have access to a computer. When asked if he would recommend Camelo to other people, Richard answered, “Yes, because of the combination of app and web interface.”

The open shift feature, which allows team members to claim shifts they want to take and the leader can confirm shift claims afterward, also fits a non-profit organization well.

“The open shift feature and the ability for the owner to confirm, which I requested and which was quickly implemented, make it easy to manage a pull preferred schedule, which is better for a non-profit organisation, but using the push as needed.”

Focusing on what truly matters

With its user-friendly interface and intuitive features, Camelo has become an indispensable tool for Whittlesey Church. The convenient tools for scheduling have saved them time and brought immense peace of mind.

They can now focus on what truly matters: running an enthusiastic team, serving the community, and spreading the message of faith.

“The app gives us the peace of mind that something is in place and meets our needs. I am slowly learning to work with people better with the help from Camelo.”