Volunteer Coordination 101

Do you work with volunteers? In charge of a committee or two? Do YOU volunteer? I am a fan of finding a cause you can get behind and giving your time to help move that cause forward. We need check-writers, too, but the muscle behind the movement is where things tend to get tricky.

Since I have worked with volunteers in some capacity for the past 10 years, as well as volunteered myself, I feel like I have a pretty good grasp on what makes for a successful volunteer experience. And, equally important, what does not. Here is a brief list. Do you volunteer or work with volunteers? Feel free to add your own thoughts. As a membership director, I would love to hear them.

1. Involve the volunteer where they want to be involved. Even though a volunteer may own a web design business, they might not want to "work" for your organization. While you should always try to take advantage of specialized skills and strengths, it should be up to the volunteer where they get to spend their donated time. If they ask to be on a specific committee, put them there.

2. Communication is key. Setting realistic expectations is crucial. You should have a volunteer job description detailing the kinds of skills needed to successfully work with the committee or project, as well as a description of how much time a volunteer can expect to work on the particular assignment.

Once key communication is laid out: FOLLOW-UP. You likely cannot communicate enough with a volunteer. Making them feel "in the loop", getting ideas, letting them know progress on goals, publicly acknowledging them and getting feedback throughout their time as a volunteer and after. I can;t stress this enough. Volunteers are giving you their time because they believe in your cause or vision and they want to know they are making a difference.

3. Involve them. All points hereafter are just crystallizing communication. If you have a committee, USE THEM. While it may be tempting to try to handle things yourself as staff or the volunteer leader, people, again, want to feel like they are contributing. Please let them.

4. Acknowledge their time and effort. While many volunteers do not want or need the recognition that isn't why they do it), it is a public acknowledgment of the time and effort they put in. Send a thank you card or e-mail and copy your supervisor or CEO. If they helped plan an event, thank them at the beginning and end, so that attendees know who to thank as well (or complain to!). Most importantly, it is much easier to get volunteers once you acknowledge that you have volunteers. Lots of people don;t realize committees, etc. exist. By thanking your volunteers publicly, you make the volunteers feel good and have a good chance of capturing more volunteers.

I have been involved in too many bad volunteer experiences to let it keep happening. Do you have advice? I would love to hear it!

Friendship Fissure

I can tell you the exact moment I heard it crack. It wasn't an ear-splitting lightening bolt, more of a seam splitting on a long-worn garment. If you think about it, you probably heard it too; muted by the clinking of glasses and witty repartee.

I am never sure if friends are reason, season or lifetime friends. I guess no one knows until the friendship either combusts spectacularly, dies a slow, neglected death or one of you actually dies and the other is there to mourn. I have had many of the first two kinds of attrition. Who knows how many more will come and go.

I have made more stupid mistakes than I care to admit. I've lost friends that could have been in the lifetime category over some crazy things (boys come to mind. Being psycho over a boy, also). I've also walked away from my fair share or friendships because there was just too much drama (although the same has been said, sometimes correctly, about me).

Through Facebook, I have been able to find, connect with and apologize to most of those to whom I was an ass and felt terribly about it either the minute it happened, or 10 years later, when I grew up.

In real life (as opposed to Facebook), I struggle with leaving relationships behind these days. I want to believe the best about people, even when they show me something else entirely. Is it because I am loyal or because I won't admit my own mistake in judgment?

Or maybe that seam ripping was the final thread of commonality holding us together.

Facebook Fast

I've deactivated my Facebook account. I may be back, I may not. Here is why:

I have had an incredibly shitty week, which caps off a pretty crappy 5 years. I am tired. Tired of being in charge of everything on all fronts. Tired of putting on a happy face for people who could not possibly care less. Tired of being the Funny Fat Girl.

After what was quite possibly a nervous breakdown of some sort today, I came to the realization that there was no one but my mother I could call. At 37, my mom is my best friend. I have about 4 girlfriends can really count on and I am thankful beyond words for them, but I can't say I have a best friend.

Those 4 people and I talk on a regular basis. As for the rest of the 136 Facebook "friends", most of them are purely surface. There are a few - former teachers I am close to, former co-workers, distant family, too - that I will keep up with via e-mail. All the rest of them couldn't care less.

So I deactivated the account. If you want to know how I am doing or what's going on with me, you'll have to do it the old fashioned way - via e-mail.

The Sound of Regret

Everyone has regrets. Those who say they don't lack a conscience, in my opinion, because no one is batting a thousand in the judgement and life decisions arena (please pardon the mixed sports metaphor). Some people regret things they did, things they said. Others regret things they didn't do.

My top three regrets in life fall into the latter category and both have to do with music, my passion thanks to my high school band experience.

Anyone who knows me even a little knows I am a way-out-of-the-closet Band Geek (capital B, capital G). I dated a music major in college and hung out at the school of music so frequently that more than one professor thought I WAS a music major that they just hadn't had in their class yet.

I actually made an audition tape in high school to send to colleges because I was thinking seriously about music as a major. I wanted - and still want to this day - to be a band director. Auditioning with the likes of Matt Hickman (I'm lookin' at you, Aire-Gai) intimidated me and I ended up not sending the tapes. I majored in English because I didn't think I had the chops to get through the performance portion of the curriculum. I majored in English. Regret number one.

During my sophomore year in high school, I had my first experience with Drum Corps, International (DCI). I was smitten. All of the power of the so many brass instruments backed by some of the most amazing percussion you will ever hear. The precision, pageantry and artistry of what they did was astounding. I fell in love and followed The Phantom Regiment religiously. Our band director had hired one of their visual designers to write our drill.

I saw them end the season ranked second with their New World Symphony program. I wanted to be one of them. I sent away for the audition packet, received it and tossed it. I knew I had the marching skills, but again lacked confidence in my playing. I pitched the packet. Regret number 2.

All through high school, I knew I wanted to attend Ohio State. For one reason and one reason only. The Best Damn Band In The Land. In fact, a friend and I contemplated switching to tuba (damned the fact that I didn't yet have a firm grasp on reading bass clef) just so we had a shot at dotting the i one day. My bags were packed, I was ready to report early for marching band auditions. Again, my confidence failed me. I wanted it so badly that if I didn't make it, I would be absolutely crushed.

I went to summer sessions (an insanely and stupidly hard practice session for both current marching band members and those who want to try out). I went a few times, got ridiculously frustrated and convinced myself that I would have to be satisfied with the Spring and athletic bands, who take anyone (and still got to be under the direction of Dr. Jon Woods - eh!). In my 5 years at THE Ohio State University, I never auditioned. Regret number 3.

Last night I attended a Drum Corps show at a local high school, where at least two, if not all three, of my regrets collided. The Ohio State Pep Band did the Star Spangled Banner and then I watched as musicians not as talented as I was 20 years ago (and I wasn't, just trying to make a point here) got to march with a Corps. I could have made at least two of those Corps without blinking.

Coulda. Shoulda. Woulda.

My regret is strong enough that several times in the past few years I have seriously contemplated trying to talk my old trumpet instructor (now the Associate Dean at OSU's School of Music) to once again take me on as a pupil, get my chops in shape and go back to school to become a band director. If I started now, I could be done by the time Jack is ready to be in his marching band :) What I wouldn't give to write a drill, choose music and see 150 high school students come together to perform it and (most of them, anyway) enjoy it.

I've shared mine, Band Geek to the finish. What are your regrets? Something you've done or DIDN'T do?

The Things We Almost Forget

I've recently had a few incidents of what may be early-onset dementia. There have been brief glimpses of something that triggered a long forgotten memory. It's like mental whiplash.

This afternoon I saw a guy on a motorcycle. I've seen people on bikes probably every day for the last three months but for some reason, today's biker lead me down the "I wonder if I might like to ride on a motorcycle...?" path.

All of a sudden, and only for an instant, I flashed back 20 years. I was speeding across the Williamstown bridge in Jason Burfield's car. We may or may not have been going over 100. I can neither confirm or deny. I had that top-of-the-roller-coaster feeling - thrilling and intensely nauseous.

And - BOOM - I was back. In a millisecond I had had that memory and was back with my definitive answer: No, I would NOT like to ride on a motorcycle.

This is a memory that I had no idea was retained. A memory I literally hadn't thought about for 20 years. It was like it was on the verge of being forgotten until I saw the motorcycle and then it came slamming to the front of my brain. There have been several of these almost-forgotten memories lately, and I find it disconcerting.

Is it my age, the nostalgia for my teens and early 20s, that is yanking me headlong into these memories? Is there some kind of connection I am missing that links to the thing I am viewing and the memory and emotion that comes with it? Am I losing my mind?

I have no idea, but it is weird.