My gripe-du-jour is about people who volunteer to take on a task
or role and then disappear. I know
it’s true that with all-volunteer organizations such as most Pagan groups are
that the out-of-site-out-of-mind rule applies. A volunteer leaves a meeting or gathering or festival full
of zeal and ready to take on the work of whatever project(s) the group is
planning. That person may even
have been provided with documents, mailing lists, etc. with which to accomplish
the task(s). He[1]
may even have taken on the responsibilities of an officer within the
organization. Then he gets home
and more immediate concerns distract and derail him.
This
phenomenon was more damaging to Pagan efforts at organizing prior to the advent
of the Internet. For instance,
within CoG, source of most but not all of my
experience, membership applications must be timely processed or the applicant
will wonder if her papers were even received. And when a newsletter published eight times a year is the
primary, and only official, vehicle of communication within the organization,
getting every newsletter to the membership is critical. Of course, today we can renew memberships
online, and the newsletter editors of recent years have done a splendid
job. But back in the day such
lapses in accomplishing volunteer tasks could have a negative impact on the
group at large.
So although
the matter of disappearing or non-performing volunteers does not have the same
consequences today, it does affect the organizations on whose behalf one
volunteered – negatively so when tasks are not fulfilled.
Were it not
for volunteers, there would be no Pagan movement. Volunteers make things happen, so please don’t let my
grumbling discourage you from volunteering. Just be sure you plan to keep your commitment. Not coming through on one’s offer can
damage the entire venture.
My frustrations relate to blogs and
blogging. I know that these
frustrations have to do with the nature of the beast, but they remain
frustrating to me nonetheless.
First is the
tendency readers have to read only brief blogs. If a blog goes into substance and nuance, if it’s longer
than 500 words or so, visitors tend not to bother reading. I myself am guilty of this. One reason is the plethora of blogs,
Pagan and otherwise. There’s so
much information and opinion being proffered that one can easily become
saturated and absorb no more for the nonce. In my case, I sometimes also find myself being
over-stimulated as well, because what a particular blogger says about a
particular topic or issue inspires me to respond. Sometimes there are things I want to add or expand upon. At other times it’s my disagreement with
the blogger that calls me to speak up.
As a result,
there are some blogs I save to read later – a goal I seldom attain. There are bloggers whose ideas or
writing appeals to me. So those are people whose blogs I tend to check more
regularly. Then there are the
profusion of blogs about timely issues, current controversies, community
standards, behavior, practice, theology and belief. In the case of current controversies, I tend to try to wait
a bit before I jump in so that I can respond in a way I consider to be
constructive rather than replying when I’m in a tizzy.[2]
So what’s a
gal to do? If I write briefer
blogs, perhaps people might be more likely to read them. However, the flip side is that when I
try to blog about a single topic, and it hinges on others topics, as so many
do, I often go for thoroughness at the expense of brevity. Although I mention in the blog the
related topics I plan to address, readers tend to bring them up as though I’d
overlooked them, when what I was trying to do was to focus on one smaller topic
in order to keep my blog shorter.
So there you
are, in fewer than 700 words. I
may or may not feel inspired to address the concept of volunteerism in another
blog. I welcome comments about
volunteerism and anything else this post might inspire the reader to share.
[1] I’m using the
masculine pronoun here because my most recent frustration is with a person of
the male persuasion; what I’m saying applies to all humans regardless of gender
or gender identity.
[2] Most recently I
waited so long to respond in a level and non-inflammatory way, my blog was so reasoned and reasonable, that it appears that no readers picked up on the fact
that in writing about inclusivity/exclusivity
and boundaries I was addressing the furor about closed and open rituals at
PantheaCon (and beyond) the last few years.
7 comments:
Hey, I figured it out, talking about inclusivity and so on. But I'm okay if we differ on some stuff. It was interesting when I attended a Pagan festival this summer and a transgender female-to-male guy was part of the men's ritual and men's mysteries talking circle, nobody batted an eye. On the other paw, I am rather evangelical in my approach, strongly interested in building public Temples.
and I was under the impression that the exclusivity/inclusivity piece was incredibly obvious. silly me!
I thought it was obvious also.
Internet newsletters as sole vehicle of communication doesn't work if participants don't have the access password. As a paying COG member of 10+ years I hate the soft copy newsletter. And we have to pay yet another fee for hard copy when dues are high for small coven of 3. But it does get back to volunteers again as the issue
blessings. Kat Field
One way around the brevity vs. thoroughness dilemma is the approach used by John Michael Greer at the Archdruid Report. He posts medium length essays on a weekly schedule. Most of the essays are not entirely freestanding. He establishes a topic or thread in one post and then develops it over the next few blog posts.
His blog isn't completely friendly to newcomers, since more recent posts make reference to ideas that were explained and developed in earlier archived posts. The advantages of this format are that regular readers can engage in deep discussions in the comments section, and at the end of a year or so, the connected posts constitute the first draft of a book. Readers' comments help him with fact checking and point out weaknesses in his arguments.
(Deborah Bender)
One way around the brevity vs. thoroughness dilemma is the approach used by John Michael Greer at the Archdruid Report. He posts medium length essays on a weekly schedule. Most of the essays are not entirely freestanding. He establishes a topic or thread in one post and then develops it over the next few blog posts.
His blog isn't completely friendly to newcomers, since more recent posts make reference to ideas that were explained and developed in earlier archived posts. The advantages of this format are that regular readers can engage in deep discussions in the comments section, and at the end of a year or so, the connected posts constitute the first draft of a book. Readers' comments help him with fact checking and point out weaknesses in his arguments.
Thanks for this post! I do see a solution, but it is one that is probably not going to be well liked. Membership officers should have terms of two or three years, and the national organization should provide computer support to make sure that documents get processed in a timely fashion. If offices were staggered so the whole board didn't turn over at the same time, there could be greater continuity.
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