How to Report Hours

Form Instructions
     Although filling out forms is not high on anyone’s list of favorite things to do, we try to make it as painless as possible through the use of Google Docs. The information asked is pared down to the essentials that are useful for keeping an accurate chapter tally for all of the volunteer hours that we give to our community and state. 

     If your last name begins with A-H contact Nancy Thoss, I-M contact Howard Homan  , N-Z contact Ling Yin Liu .  Please fill out each column that applies to your volunteer activity. If it does not apply, leave it blank.   John Wolcott jwolcott@satx.rr.com and Roy Yarnold royyarnold@sbcglobal.net have not only volunteered to assist you with this effort but will also serve as the clearing-house for information regarding reported hours, hours that have vanished and those that have gone unreported.

Fill Out the Form
The directions on filling out the form are below, along with a form example to help you fill out your hours.  AAMN Volunteer Hours Log

To see a complete list of all of our Sponsors and Partners with links to their websites you can go to the Links Tab or click here:  List of Sponsors and Partners

A. NAME KEY:
Enter your last name first, then your first name.

B. DATE:
Enter the date of the activity (mm/dd/yyyy).

C. ACTIVITY:
Entering the activity title is usually sufficient, but if the title is vague or unusual, then give a brief description.

D. LOCATION & SPONSOR:
Enter the location or the sponsor of the activity. Some common abbreviations are found in the chart above.

E. SVC HRS (Service Hours):
Round the number to the nearest 15 minutes, in decimals, so that you can easily use a calculator to add up your total hours (each 15 minutes equals 0.25 of an hour):

(e.g. 1:05 = 1.00, 1:15 = 1.25, 1:32 =1.50, 1:44 = 1.75).

F. ADV TRAIN (Advanced Training):
Round the number as above with Service Hours. See also Travel Time.

G. TRAVEL TIME:
You may report your time to and from any activity (volunteer service and advanced training) as Service Hours. However, if the activity to which you are traveling is for advanced training, only the actual advanced training time may be reported as Advanced Training, the travel time must be reported as Service Hours.

H. OUTREACH: If you volunteer as a speaker or a guide, then please also fill out the Outreach columns. If you are volunteering on a trail or a restoration, then give also under Activity the trail length or the restoration area. Guess, if do not know for sure.

a. TOT ATT (Total Attendence):
Enter the number of people who are participating in your activity.

b. AUDIENCE:
Enter the number of people at your activity who are adults and the number who are children. For the purpose of outreach, also indicate  how many are either Caucasian (C), Black (B), Asian (A), or Hispanic (H). Guess, if you do not know for sure.  If there is a group of you participating in the same activity, only one person is to fill out the Attendance portion – do not have everyone report the number of attendees to the same activity/event.

3. Send In Your Form
The easiest way to send in your hours every quarter is to fill out the form in Google Docs.

Instructions For Using Google Docs

Google Documents or “Docs” is an application of the www.google.com website. The Alamo Area Chapter developed a spreadsheet under this application for us to use to enter our hours.  It allows you to input your hours from any computer, not just your home computer, and frees you up from having to mail in your hours each month.  It keeps track of your volunteer time by month so you can look back at your time throughout the year.  It will also keep prior year’s data for you so you can look back at any time to see your hours.  Some people like to keep track of their time in an Excel spreadsheet on their own PC and will cut and paste into their Google Doc timesheet once a month.  Anyway you choose to update your hours, you will have record here of where you have worked, and the amount of time you have spent for Master Naturalist.

You must have an account set up with Google to use Google Docs. 

To begin, open your browser and go to www.google.com   

At the top of your screen you will see a list of selections such as “Images”, “Video”, “Gmail” etc.  You may have to select “More” to see “Documents” listed.  Select “Documents”.  A new screen will be displayed that will prompt you to enter your Google account information.  If you do not have a Google Account, click the box that says “Create An Account Now” and follow the prompts to set up your Google Account using your existing email account.  After you have registered with Google, then you can use Google Docs.

If you have a Google Account, then sign in with your Google account email and password.  You will see all of the documents you have access to.  You should see a document with your name and year.

Click on your name.  A spread sheet type document will be displayed.  At the bottom of the screen you will see blocks that are similar to tabs at the bottom of an Excel spreadsheet.

Click on “Details” at the bottom of the screen that contains the quarter you volunteered in.

On the first line of the spreadsheet type in your name, last name first, tab over and type in the date, activity etc. Please be brief with your Activity and your Location. The data entry personnel will thank you for that!

The Google Docs timesheet automatically saves your data.

NOTE: On the line that reads TOT ATT do not enter total hours for your service. This column is for Outreach programs only and represents the total number of attendees for the event. Besides the total, be sure to fill in the number of adults and the number of children. Remember that Outreach data is entered only for events where you minister to people e. g. leading a hike, teaching a class, staffing a booth. If you are attending a class, that is not Outreach, so do not make entries.

You may view your totals on the Summary Page. This page does a “roll up” from quarterly worksheets and should be protected from entries or changes.

When you are finished, sign out by going to the top right of the screen and you will see your email address with a “down arrow”      Click on the down arrow and select “Sign Out”

You are done!

Hint:  You can bookmark your timesheet and add it to your Favorites in your browser so it will be readily available when you want to key in your hours.  To do this, from the Summary page of your timesheet, position your mouse off the timesheet into the blue area and right click your mouse.  Select “Add To Favorites”.  You can name it anything you want.

It is VERY important that you report your hours for that is how this organization gets funds to operate!

If you have questions about your Google Docs timesheet, contact one of the following people:

If your last name begins with A-H, contact Nancy Thoss 

If your last name begins with I-M, contact Howard Homan

If your last name begins with N-Z, contact Ling Yin Liu