Discussion: You work really hard

And as a fellow Boston orienteer, NEOC member and loyal Ian fan, I thank you :)

As long as we're planning ways to improve your delegation and efficiency, have you considered changing "-improve publicity" to "-find someone else to improve publicity"

I only mention it because since it is your lowest priority it probably means you don't have much personal interest in the task. It would probably go better to recruit someone with fewer more pressing commitments or someone who would enjoy the challenge of publicity.

Yeah, that certainly would be nice. For many of the tasks, my goal is to find someone to whom I can delegate, though some of the jobs cannot be disassociated from my position. I plan to write little reports like this on my progress to better keep people informed.

From a local club experience, when a single person has too much on their plate, 1) even if it works in the short term, in the long term doing such a Herculean task consistently well is impossible, and 2) to have a strong club, there have to be many people deeply invested in club's activities; this comes from a strong pool of volunteers...

From my experience from my running club in Tucson, people are often willing to pitch in a little bit at events. In the O club, it seems to be a lot harder to get people to commit in advance. I think it has to do with the way it's presented - in the running club we usually see an email where someone says, "speaking of the blahblah race this Saturday, I could still use few people to help me out. Is there anyone who could cover the SAR booth from 7-8 and a couple people to direct parking before the race?" Whereas in the O club it's more like, "We still need volunteers for this month's meet. Remember, everyone needs to give a little bit of time to make the meets happen! We hate cancelling meets!"

I think volunteering is fun, and the running club requests are phrased in a way that suggests you're just asking some friends to give you a hand. It might even be fun! The O club requests are often phrased as if this is an arduous duty that needs doing, and almost try to make people feel guilty for not doing it. The running club never seems to lack volunteers, whereas the O club seems to rely on people pitching in on the day-of. That just shows me that people are perfectly willing to help, but the appeal is not phrased well.

I swear this is relevant to the Ian's delegation issue, in that it's easier to delegate if you are tactful and friendly about it.

Not that I think Ian will have a problem with that.

That's a long list. Why are you in charge of organizing their 40th reunion party thing? Get someone else to do that, asap, that sounds like an awful job.

If I were you, I'd put a post in the next email newsletter that goes out, asking for volunteers for those specific tasks. It would be a crime if you had to do all of them alone.

I 5th the need for more help for Ian.
Hardily agree with Cristina, NEOC tends to frame the volunteer arguement in the area of responsibility and guilt. Seems like a carrot would work better. If people got together more often socially, then they would actively want to help someone putting on a meet, and it would be easier for them to help someone they knew, rather some BOD member at the other end of a mass email.
And tripledouble is right, doing it yourself will work once or twice, but it does you and the club no good in the long run. Better to spread out the jobs, have meetings (with food and drink) to hash out the problems and work together. That will get more done and everyone will have a good time.
History: NEOC used to put on 2 A meets a year, lots of work by many people. But also lots of interaction as much planning was done at big meetings of all the meet workers over the months leading up to the events.
CSU knows how to do this, so should NEOC.

I should note that these are the tasks I am currently thinking about and of which I have oversight. Many of them can and will be delegated to others. My interest in publicity is cursory; I'm happy to brainstorm ideas, but I lack the capacity to implement them right now.

I listed these tasks as a tool to keep people informed for what I am working on and thinking about. It is an unfortunate consequence of formal organization that mundane routine tasks occupy so much of my time. There's nothing particularly interesting about applying for permits, for example, but failing that, there are no events.

I am always looking to delegate tasks, and I will keep everyone appraised on my progress to that end.

Alex wrote: That's a long list. Why are you in charge of organizing their 40th reunion party thing? Get someone else to do that, asap, that sounds like an awful job.

I realize that I am often the master of the obvious (and often too the exact opposite), but one thing I have discovered is that there are certain people in this world who love to organize parties. It sounds like Ian needs to find one of them; hopefully one who organizes *good* parties.