Musing on Volunteers in a Post-NorWesCon World. :-)

.....It was a strange day of trying to catch up with the 'Real World' (tm) in preparation for going back to work tomorrow. Slept in until at least 8:00, and then watched at least a part of 'West Wing' before sucumbing entirely to Farmville for several hours.

.....The house is in shambles. I did manage to go through most of the boxes of stuff we packed for NORWESCON, but there are piles of paper and books all around the bed. There are piles of clothes everywhere. Thankfully, TBT did some cleaning last week or else the house would be in total chaos. Somehow I do not expect to see things get much better before next weekend. But thankfully we have NOWHERE to be next weekend. :-) So maybe we'll catch up on a few things (like HOUSEWORK :-)).

.....Tomorrow is the April Business Meeting. Looks like the fighting community might be in Blatha An Oir for Fight Practice. It should be O.K., although I'm not exactly looking forward to the meeting. It will be the first day back to work after a long weekend and I'll be grouchy for sure. And there are already a few sure signs that we'll have to deal with interesting personality traits in at least one volunteer tomorrow night. Sigh!

.....I'll admit it right off, given a choice between a 'Modern Commitment' and one to the SCA, the 'Modern Commitment' comes first. Which normally means 'the modern job'. Which also means that if it has been a tough day at work, I'm just as likely to fall asleep in front of the computer before finishing my quarterly report.

.....So, having said that I understand that you have to be just a little more flexible when dealing with volunteers in a Volunteer Organization. There will be late reports. There will be absent officers. There will be mistakes on paperwork. There will be unwise choices. These come with the territory of a Volunteer Organization and you roll with it and move onwards. Expecting your volunteers to come through with what they say they will do, but picking up that ball on those occasions when you need to do so.

.....There is a art to being able to gage when someone is about to stumble and when you have to remove a burden from them. If you step in too early you look like the big, bad overlord who doesn't trust anyone but yourself to do a job. But if you wait too long you have to expend extra energy and resources to clean up a mess that could have been avoided if you had dealt with it earlier.

.....Sometimes, if you let the volunteer deal directly with the consequences of their own inaction or wrong decision, they can learn a lot that will help them grow. Conversely, those same volunteers may become overwhelmed with the situation they find themselves swimming through and run away screaming.

.....I'm watching a volunteer now who worries me. I know that we should step in and do something. But what exactly? There will be consequences no matter what we do. Every volunteer is precious and you do not want to lose their help. Nor do you want to lose the help of the friends they would take with them if they decided they've been treated badly and do not want to play anymore.

.....I don't want to be unkind either. If work has taught me anything it is that I don't ever want to be the kind of manager to anyone that my managers currently are to me. So I need to be careful with anything I say. But at the same time I want to give others the opportunity to take on a job they might enjoy immensely.

.....Just musing out loud. Thankfully we're not dealing with anything that requires a panic response. It is NOT BAMO. And we have time to do things right.

.....On the other hand, I haven't mentioned lately how cool my proteges' are. And they are. :-). Isketol is working on a project that will have him shine and enlarge his word-fame. Aelianora is probably the smartest person I know and I get coolness vibes just hanging out with her. So my life as a Pelican is pretty good. :-)

.....O.K. I'm getting loopy. Time for bed.

.....Aaron / Arontius.