I belong to a archery club. It's purpose is to provide a range and training to promote archery. The reason I belong is indoor shooting in the winter is reasonable exercise. Like many clubs, there is a shortage of participation in volunteering, and a whole list of vacant positions. The question is why and how to overcome this issue?
I think one of the biggest problems is specific volunteers creating issues for the others volunteers through trying to tightly control or limit the activities, the unwilling or inability to communicate effectively, and the inability to delegate and accept the results. The lack of communications or a logical plan is the other issue. A president who is a control freak, or has a inability to effectively delegate, is a real problem. If some control freak will not let the control go, expect disagreement, or more likely, a shortage of volunteers, which later translates into a reduction in the number of members. It all comes down to personalities.
I just came back from the annual general meeting. It has executive meetings where all the business is conducted, and everything is actually decided. The problem is that so much information is secret, that is not available to the members, that I just do not care anymore. Screw it, it just ain't worth the hassle.
There were no financial statements. OK. In the last year several substantial expenditures were made, which on the face make no sense, like a major amount of money spent on floor finishing in the fourth year of a five year lease; but we coaches cannot get a white board and a line buzzer mounted on the wall. Oh well.
There is a communication problem. Look on the web site to find out about the annual general meeting. Can You find it?
So they depend on email from a list of members. The default on firefox is any email with multiparty addresses above ten is spam. Out it goes. So now I need to hand filter CRAC out of spam.
How about issues the club members have with the club? How about the process of bringing up something to the executive? Find an executive member and if he thinks it is worthwhile, it may come up? How about light small targets for the traveling show? More than one year and nothing? So why do I care? The executive meetings should have a new business section where anyone from the membership can bring up anything and have it resolved. If you do not respond, you will likely lose the member. How many members can we afford to lose?
How about the decisions made at the executive level? Are these ever made public? Consider the moneys spent on that floor. What does the membership think? It looks nice, granted, but at what cost? How many members left because of that decision? How many members will go to our competition because of the decision, if they knew the amount spent?
Control to the point of killing desire to cooperate or just secrecy for the sake of control?
It is my opinion and just my opinion that open communications is absolutely necessary for an volunteer organization to operate.
How about what happens at the coaches meetings?
There is a policy committee. Who beside the executive is on it?
Members need to be part of the decision making process. If we are not, why are we members?
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