WEB: But we are talking about a volunteer program here...

[Lorraine Pozzi]

On Tue, 20 Jul 1999, Rod Clark wrote:


> It costs a few hundred dollars a month to
> have them do that, but apparently this has improved the
> registration situation quite a bit compared to when it was done
> by volunteers. This is something that might someday be done by
> regular SCN office staff, if SCN would ever have any...,

A small correction here.  I do not believe the registration process
has ever been more efficient than when I (as a volunteer) was
processing registrations.  Not a particularly challenging task,
but one which many of us saw as crucial.  To do these kinds of
boring jobs, one has to feel a commitment to the organization.
Unfortunately, that commitment seems to be in short supply.

I am amazed that Rod can continue to do as much work as he does,
and still try to make the remaining volunteers feel like it is
worth their time to contribute.  

As for the Audubon Society -- yes, I was on the board when they
made the switch -- and those people are NOT sweet little twittery twittery 
birds -- think "shrikes" and you're closer to the mark.  It was
a very difficult time.  But that's not SCN's problem today.  And
not for the foreseeable future.  

I took Nan's training for the AmeriCorps literacy group -- and 
one of her principal messages was, "There's important work to
do here" for every volunteer.  Maybe it's time to ask the
volunteers -- "What is important?" and if it's important,
"Do you feel satisfaction in a job well done?"

And I think those questions need to be addressed at the 
board level, as well, in a slightly different format.  "What
are we asking our volunteers to do?" and "Why should they 
want to do it?" 

Lorraine
  
> > Is it ethical for a person to be a volunteer all the time seeking
> > to convert this nonpayer into a paying job not for every volunteer
> > but for a select few--the rest of the volunteers to be recycled the
> > old volunteers are "killed" (emotionally).

> 
>    No one wants people to be "killed," either by the work itself
> or by their feelings about the organization. But I remember
> someone opining last year that going from an all-volunteer
> organization to having paid staff tends to result in a
> "bloodbath" among volunteers. I think it was Lorraine who
> mentioned that, about her experience with an org where she was a
> board member. (Was it the Audobon Society? - but they seem like
> such nice quiet bird-ish people, not given to "bloodbaths" and
> internal warfare.) Maybe this is one of those human-nature
> reactions that there's no way around, other than to try to
> lessen the dissatisfaction that it might cause someday. In
> reality, SCN's budget is inadequate to do anything other than
> argue about this for a long time yet.
> 
> Rod Clark
> 
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