I feel that volunteering some of your spare time is an important way to give back to your community the blessings that you have recieved from God.
I volunteer my spare time in a number of significant ways. I coach soccer and until this year basketball. It started with my daughter's teams at school. When my oldest son started Pre-K, I coached his Friday night soccer clinic for 2 years.
In the past, I was involved in Habitat for Humanity. More recently, I particpate in Rebuilding Together, Baltimore (used to be called Christmas in April). These great charities help provide shelter to the needy. The last Saturday in April is Rebuilding Together. My CSI chapter goes to one needy persons house, usually an elderly person, and performs minor home repair and maintenance.
My CSI Chapter itself is a volunteer organization. I've served as chair of a couple of committees, a director and now 2nd Vice President.
At our parish, we have a new Pastoral LIfe Director. We were without a pastor (priest) for several months before the Archidiocese assigned a lay woman to be our PLD. She is WONDERFUL and has done many good things for the parish.
However, I've been watching from the outside some troubling developments with the Buildings and Grounds Committee. This is a governance committee charged with overseeing the Church, Rectory and School property. The chair is not so much a friend as an acquaintence of mine - former fire fighter, now a sprinkler inspector. Seems to know a lot about buildings and construction. Last fall I reached out to him because I had been asked by separate parties to help prepare some documents in pursuit of grant money to repair/replace restroom facilities at the school. The chair, let's call him Barry, had been looking for an Architect for the committee, so I volunteered. The holidays prevented me from attending a single meeting.
Beginning in January, Barry began a fierce e-mail writing campaign, railing against the PLD, Parish and School for being non-communicative and obstructionist to his goals and the committee's work. Like many things, I saw the truth to lie somewhere to the left of his claims. He and I had disagreed on some security issues earlier in the fall, so I knew chances were good he was being unreasonable. I mentioned to a friend of mine, also very active in parish community, this campaign. My friend went to the PLD, and today, Barry resigned as chair of the committee, taking some harsh parting shots on his way out the door.
Now, 6 pages later, I get to my musings - I think one of the most difficult things to do is to get people to dedicate their energies and intellect to their volunteer activities. Many of us with education, who perform professional services 5 days a week for pay, either refuse or simply do not bring the same rigor of thought and action to our volunteer activities. For example, with our CSI Chapter, many of our members hide behind work travel, work hours or work stress for not getting even the most basic tasks performed for the chapter's good. In the past, I have been guilty of this, but have tried to change my ways.
By rigor of thought and action, I mean preparing an agenda for a meeting. I can't tell you how many meetings, Board or committee, I've attended where the meeting ebbed and flowed and rambled on with seemingly no agenda or pathway. This leads to a.) boring meetings b.) long meetings and c.) participants making excuses for not attending. I would never plan and organize a meeting for my job without agenda, time length, course of actions, decisions needing to be made, etc. Why would you not do the same for a volunteer organization where you're spending your free time, not your paid time?
Secondly, how do you convince people to pour their hearts into something and not have them crushed if things don't go well? I guess this point is mostly moot, as most well adjusted adults wouldn't let this happen to them.
