Region dues

[jjjanos]

ya know what i get real tired of?

people that think if you don't volunteer your time, that you don't have the right to say anything negative.

You know what I'm tired of? People who haven't even paid their regional dues complaining about how their region does things...

"agreed. i let it all lapse this year. even if i come back for one race, i'm not paying the region dues, or the nat'l dues if i can avoid it."

You just lost the right to bitch about how a Region sets its dues and spends its money because YOU NO LONGER BELONG.

the whole conundrum with the volunteer organization is like this in my head;

1) joe runs the region/races this way
2) bob politely suggests it would be done better another way
3) joe isn't so sure that's true, and doesn't feel like expending the energy to find out
4) bob doesn't pressure joe about it, because he understands joe is a volunteer, and on some level it's not fair to criticize how a volunteer does his volunteering
5) joe keeps doing it the way he's always done it because he knows it *works* and he can expend minimal effort to accomplish the end goal, after all, he has a regular job, wife, and kids to tend to.

in the end, nothing changes. joe has done his part by volunteering, but bob has also done his part by trying to provide a solution to what he see's as a problem. nobody is to blame, nobody is at fault, but still nothing changes, and improvements that would benefit all are not realized.

Bob has done squat. In a volunteer organization, those willing to do the work get to pick the work they do and they way they do it. These aren't paid positions and forcing people to do anything else results in a position vacancy. The organization can force them to do something new or in a different way, but push the vols far enough and they walk. Gawd help us if we had to pay to get the outstanding service we get from our vols... think what 60 employees for 20+ hours would do to entry fees.

When I headed PR for my Region, one of the tasks was lugging battery-powered kiddie cars to various functions that never got us a single member or even people who kept the race schedules we handed them. After 3 of these time wasters, I told the BoD I wouldn't have anything to do with the cars again even though it was part of the position. Someone else would have to do it.

Lots of members thought the cars were great. People complained that we weren't using the cars anymore, but you know what? Not one damn person stepped up to volunteer to lug those f'ing things around and round up the people to keep the kids from crashing into each other.