Subject:
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Re: the joys of volunteering
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.general
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Date:
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Mon, 11 Mar 2002 14:03:48 GMT
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Viewed:
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634 times
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I try not to be much of a "me too" kind of guy around here. Mostly post like
that just waste space. But this case is differant. I really think that
Lugnet in general is a great place to get more from what you could possibly
get from any other place, and never be able to compensate for it
(monitarily, or time put into it). We have a lot of people to thank for
that, just as Kerry reminds us.
You may not belive it, but I was thinking the same thing when I saw Suz's
posts about getting the home page fixed up, (and privately thanked her)
before I even read this post. I'd like to publicly thank her for her
efforts, Dan for keeping the set reference and parts references up to date,
and for all the other people here who take the time to try to fairly mediate
disputes, and solve technical problems, and most of all (and not least of
all) Todd for concieving such a place to begin with.
Rich
--
Have Fun! C-Ya!
Legoman34
*****
Legoman34 (Richard W. Schamus)... (My views do not necessarily express the
views of my employer...)
BRICKFEST 2002 IS JUST AROUND THE CORNER... START MAKING PLANS TODAY.
Card carrying LUGNET MEMBER: #70
Visit http://www.geocities.com/legoman34.geo/
...(the wait is over...)
..."The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself." ...
*****
In lugnet.general, Kerry Raymond writes:
> Sadly, rule 1 about volunteering is "you can't please all of the people all of
> the time".
>
> "You should have done it like <this>!" As a volunteer, you do your best with
> the people, time, money, etc available. You often know you could have done
> better if you had had more people, time, money etc, but that wasn't the way it
> was. Then, having given your all, you get back a tidal wave of "you could have
> done it better", "you could have done it bigger", "you should have done it
> differently", "that wasn't the highest priority", etc etc. Yes, you probably
> get the odd "thank you" but mostly you get a barrage of criticism, and even if
> it is meant "constructively", it pretty soon feels like one slap in the face
> after another. It's easy for a volunteer to get fed up and give it away. Or to
> just feel that it's time to step down and take a break and get some time back
> into other parts of their life.
>
> "But I have offered to help!" It is a major logistical task in itself to
> organise a large group of volunteers. There are always so many people who will
> happily help, but only on the weekends, but only if you give them a couple of
> days notice to organise a babysitter, but only if you can get someone to give
> them a lift home, but not in a way that conflicts with their
> religious/dietary/whatever principles etc. Frankly it is often simpler to do a
> job yourself than try to coordinate a large group of other people, each with
> their own "special conditions", yet you can so easily offend people if you
> refuse their offer to help.
>
> LUGnet was founded by volunteers and is still run by volunteers. Just because
> some of us have sent in some membership money, it doesn't fundamentally change
> this. From time to time, some of those volunteers are going to burn out. We can
> reduce this burnout if we all do more to say "thank you, I appreciate it" and
> go easy on the criticism (even if it seems like Good Advice or Constructive
> Criticism). It's easy to say "change this", "do that" without appreciating how
> much effort goes into just keeping things ticking over, let alone making new
> things. Automating things may make life easier, but it takes time and effort to
> set up the automation and a lot of automation needs to keep a human in the loop
> (e.g. prevent porn sites being proposed as Cool Site Of The Week).
>
> Finally, if you want to step up to the plate as a volunteer, understand that
> unless you have a lot of spare time, the right expertise, and so on, then you
> may actually be making the job harder not easier. So, don't be offended if your
> help isn't wanted in that way at that time. Being offended just makes someone's
> life harder too.
>
> LUGnet *is* a wonderful thing. The volunteers who run it are doing wonderful
> things. And the rest of us need to appreciate it a bit more often and say so a
> lot more often!
>
> Kerry
>
> --
> ============
> Kerry Raymond
> kerry@dstc.edu.au
> Proud to be LUGNET Member 599
> www.lugnet.com/people/members/?m=599
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: the joys of volunteering
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| (...) [snip] Actually, I rarely touch the set or parts database. The LUGNET Guide is maintained mostly by Jennifer Boger, Joshua Delahunty and Suz. The parts database is maintained soley by Steve Bliss. I just muck with things behind the scenes :) (...) (23 years ago, 12-Mar-02, to lugnet.general)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | the joys of volunteering
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| Sadly, rule 1 about volunteering is "you can't please all of the people all of the time". "You should have done it like <this>!" As a volunteer, you do your best with the people, time, money, etc available. You often know you could have done better (...) (23 years ago, 11-Mar-02, to lugnet.general) !!
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