3. Eventually, we collapsed detailed categories, which were rather unwieldy, into broader categories, and we developed a definitions page to help us to continue tracking tasks in a consistent way (see Appendix A).

4. There are a number of non-tutor volunteers working at Prospects, including board members, library volunteers and office volunteers. Special categories were set up to account for these hours since we would be grossly overestimating the capacity of the paid staff if we did not take into account the additional work done by these volunteers.

The Value of This Exercise

In a program as busy as ours, where there is never enough time to do everything that needs to be done, it seemed pointless at times to try to keep track of our time. The early drafts of time- sheets were particularly frustrating as they were overly detailed and complex. Sometimes, too, we would forget about this additional task and would have to spend even more time thinking back over several hours.

Over the weeks, however, it was gratifying to see an image of our program emerge that we were not accustomed to seeing. We were affirmed in our belief that we were indeed on the right track in terms of providing the necessary support to our tutors and students. We also began to note the considerable amount of non- volunteer time being given to our program. And we began to tally, for the first time, the number of volunteer hours that paid staff were contributing to the program. But it was not until we compiled and analysed the data at the end of four months, that we saw the services we provide quantified in greater detail than we had ever seen them before.

Comparing Year-end Participation Summaries

Gathering the data for the second phase was relatively simple. We have on file at Prospects copies of all year-end reports submitted in previous years. Once we had completed our analysis for the 1994 statistics we were able to compile the data for three years onto one chart where we could easily compare across years.