To Volunteer or Not To Volunteer

[huntersglenn]

Posting this mini-rant here, because there's less of a chance of someone involved with this to see this post here. I'm involved with a genealogical/historical society that has the issue of plenty of members, but not enough volunteers to be officers/run the thing. We had a new person take over as newsletter editor last September, but she didn't think that it was necessary to keep including obituaries in the newsletter.

Most of our members do not live in the area, so the obituaries are ways for them to find out if the relatives of people they grew up with have died, or if classmates have died, that sort of thing. So, I stupidly said I'd gather them. It's not hard, it's just time-consuming. I have to search through the obituaries of our local newspaper, and then the funeral homes that cover this particular county, then copy and paste, put them in order and send them to the newsletter editor. I was Vice President of the Society, and our President decided in July to quit, even though we hold our elections in October - so I was stuck as President for those few months. I was very happy as VP. My main duty with that was to arrange for speakers, and lead the meetings if the President wasn't there. And even after she quit, she only missed attending one meeting. Luckily, I had the rest of our speakers lined up, and was working for speakers for this year.

The woman who was newsletter editor ended up heading the committee to get a slate of officers for October. Our Treasurer was old, and having vision problems, and couldn't continue as she was scared she'd make mistakes (she also gave up driving due to her vision problems). Our Secretary works for a farm that decided to grow more crops, and she's their only office worker, so she was working more on weekends - at that point, we had a deal with her where she was Secretary, but if she wasn't at a meeting, someone else would take the minutes, so she wouldn't have to worry about things. The newsletter editor and I worked out a deal - if nobody else volunteered to run for President, she'd run for VP and I'd run for President. And that's what we ended up doing. Our Secretary stayed on, and we did get someone to volunteer to be Treasurer (which is now an entirely different problem, as she's ill, but we also elected her son to be Assistant Treasurer, so all is covered on that front). So, as President, I provide a letter or message for the newsletter. I was doing the obituaries for the newsletter. And for January, I provided the meeting announcement, since the new VP wouldn't take over until our January meeting. Which didn't happen because she was ill. And then she let me know that she had to step down as VP, because she couldn't do both positions.

This pissed me off. While I understand that real life has to take precedence, I felt that I'd been tricked into running for President. With her stepping down, that meant I had to continue doing the VP duties until and unless a new VP could be found. At that point, she'd done nothing as VP. I've got speakers lined up through April. As for the newsletter - all she had to do was re-format the obituaries, the message, the announcement, and then add whatever she wished to add. In short, most of the work was being done for her. I can't do VP, President AND the obituaries. I also have a job, even though I'm self-employed and don't have a boss breathing down my neck, so that extra time it took to collect those was time I really don't have.

So, today, I find out from her that she's giving up being newsletter editor because it's too time consuming. Her mother died last year and her elderly father is living on his own, and she has to check up on him in person a couple of times a week. Her work is picking up, and her boss is in more often (it's a real estate office that mostly handles rentals). I don't know when her mother died, but it was at least a few months before she volunteered to be newsletter editor. And again, I understand that real life has to take precedence, but she knew back in September how much work this was going to be - and it's not all that much, since she's mostly copying and pasting. Most of the newsletters go out by e-mail, the rest by mail, so there is printing to do, and a visit to the post office to put them in the mail. I think she just didn't want to handle collecting the obituaries, and even though I backed down on insisting that they not be included, leaving it up to her, she doesn't want to take the time to do them. It's not like they can't be collected on a weekly or daily basis, instead of trying to grab them all at one time.

Granted, this is a position that can be done by members who don't live anywhere near here. But I doubt if any of them are going to volunteer. It makes me afraid that the Society will fail, not because of a lack of members, but because of the antipathy of its members. Those members who live in the area are older, and many of them have already spent years volunteering - either for our Society or one for the next county over. They're tired, and rightly so.

But, I still feel aggravated toward this woman, because hey, she can find plenty of time to post to Facebook during her work day, and I think that as long as her volunteer work didn't actually require her to do anything, she was fine with it. It pisses me off that the 'work load' of the two positions are too much for her to handle when she never did the one job in the first place, and someone else provides most of the stuff for her to use in the newsletter.

Yeah, it's easy to do a job when someone else is actually doing all the work for you. It would have been far better for her to not have volunteered to do either position last year, so we could have started out this year with people who were willing and able to do the work. Or else have put it to the members in October that they either volunteered or the Society came to an end.

Comments

[h_h_gothrykke]

Damn, girl, what a bitch! As president, can't you call a committee to make a special election?

[huntersglenn]

The problem is that people don't want to volunteer, period. When or if someone is willing to take on the position of Vice President, it will have to be voted on, and that'll happen during one of the regular meetings. Newsletter editor is a totally volunteer position, not an elected one.

I think that I'm more aggravated and frustrated with this particular woman, moreso than anything/anyone else. She had to have had some idea back in October that she'd be busy taking care of her father, but she volunteered anyway to run for VP. Why did she bother? As it was, I think we had a grand total of 7 or 9 members at the October meeting when we held elections. In January, we had far more people than that, but some people probably stayed home in October because they didn't want to be put on the spot and asked if they'd serve as officers. As President, my belief is that if a person doesn't want to run, then you don't force them to run, or elect them regardless. It's just wrong.

I'm also aggravated with that woman because she apparently could do the job of newsletter editor until she found herself having to actually do work for the job. As long as someone else was doing the work for her, then it wasn't a problem. A month ago, when she gave up being VP, she was all assuring that by giving up VP, she'd be able to do the newsletter. Then I told her she'd have to collect the obituaries and then she suddenly found it to be 'too much'.

[h_h_gothrykke]

It's a status thing. People want power with none of the responsibilities. If there were actual consequences for quitting, she would never have volunteered.

Maybe it's time you did call that vote of new officers or disband. At this point, you're the only one doing anything. That's not a club.

[huntersglenn]

One problem is that this lack of volunteers is not just with our group. It happens to a lot of groups where you depend on volunteers. A core group of people do all the work, and when they say enough, nobody else is willing to step up to the plate. Our group's biggest problem is that the majority of our members do not live near the place. Heck, it takes me an hour and 45 minutes to get there (including a pit stop). Most of those who live locally are older (as in over 70), and of the younger ones, they've already burnt out in other groups. We need more local people to join AND participate, and recruitment was going to be a focus for this year - and now the focus is going to have to be remaining viable.

[h_h_gothrykke]

Have you tried putting out a weekly ad on craigslist? Do the bare minimum of recruiting.

Link your group with the other local chapter for a bit, ask if they can submit the newsletter for both your groups if you provide the obits.

If organizing everything becomes too much a problem, do it bi-monthly instead of monthly. Or, just eliminate the meetings until something important comes up.

[huntersglenn]

There is no other local organization. The closest society folded last year, and was our mother group. It's a very rural area, in fact, one of the poorest counties of the state. The running joke, which isn't really a joke because it's true, is that there are more black bears in the county than people (grin). If it were a more populated area, then things would most likely be a bit easier.

See my reply to Farad about my opinion on going to quarterly or bi-monthly meetings. The mother group slowly died after doing that (they also moved their meetings from Sundays to mid-week, at 2:30 in the afternoon and then wondered why nobody came...)

All of those would be good ideas, but just not workable in this particular situation. I'd hoped that when the mother group faced disbanding, that they'd opt instead to join with us - most of our members overlap. But they chose instead to fold. There is a larger group not that far away, and they'd love to take over, but they're also having the same issues with volunteers and getting people to fill their positions.

I think that lack of interest is probably coming out of people turning more and more to the internet to pursue their genealogy, and a lot of people just don't care too much about the historical side of things.

[h_h_gothrykke]

Maybe it's the way of things. Try collecting your information for ebooks, write your history down, become a historical non-fiction writer. Put out adds looking for people who want to try their hands at that. Your accounts on the varied reasons for spellings, your inside knowledge on how things were recorded, even the causes of certain loss of information is fascinating.

Go from a genealogy society, to a historical preservation society.

[huntersglenn]

We are a genealogical and historical society. Those are some excellent ideas, but unless we have enough officers, then we can't continue to exist.

We have a journal that is published twice a year and we're cutting it down to once a year because people don't contribute anything for it (and I'm guilty of that, too, as I have things I could write up for it). The woman who types it up, gets it printed and mailed, has to find different things for it each time. The members all say they want these things (newsletter and journals and the society in general), but when it's time to prove it by contributing, they all go silent.

I knew all that before I ever became a member, as it's that way with every group. It's more that now, after 5 years in the group, I have less patience and tolerance for it.

[farad]

WOW - you haven't mentioned this - this is dreadful! You're now - what, over half the officers for this organization? Yeah, that's got to be very time-consuming. Could you perhaps find a way to get some of the others who don't want to be officers to do one or two things for the organization, to take some of the load off?

Do y'all have enough people at the meetings to warrant a speaker every month?

So sorry!

[huntersglenn]

People come out just for the speakers.

Yeah, we have 4 elected positions, so at the moment, I'm doing two of them. Our secretary is now also dealing with her husband being ill and in a nursing home for physical therapy, probably for a few months before she can bring him home - and then the demands of her job at the farm. But, her job demands were already known and worked around. Our Treasurer's son had offered to help him mom, and now he's been officially elected as Assistant Treasurer, because she's been ill since November. She's got a bacterial infection in her lungs and on oxygen at home and forbidden to leave the house. He's a government employee who works on special submarines and ships, and can be called with no notice to pack up to go elsewhere for weeks at a time for work. He's leaving this Thursday for 2 weeks, so won't be there for our next meeting, so between now and Thursday, he's rushing to get the Treasurer's report done, mail collected, bills paid, etc.

From what I've witnessed, those genealogy/historical groups who meet monthly and then drop to quarterly, or even every other month, fold within a few years. Meeting quarterly or every other month seems to work best if your group starts out that way. If we fail, I plan to go out kicking and screaming, and not with a whimper!

I'm hoping we can get some of the members who live outside of the area to take up some tasks, such as the newsletter. They don't need to be local to do that job. Heck, VP probably doesn't need to be local, as most of the work is e-mailing or phoning people to get them to speak. The only reason a VP needs to be local is if the President can't be at the meeting. And right now, I'm the one with the keys to the building, so if I'm not there, they're screwed in more ways than one (grin)!

One thing that's been a problem in the past is getting current officers to write up what their jobs entail. Same thing with newsletter editor. People are even more reluctant to volunteer for a job if they have no clue what the job is about. Last year, as the time approached when our President was stepping down, I kept asking her to write up what her duties were. Never happened.

Thanks for your sympathy. We'll figure something out, or fold. Either way, something will happen!