Responses
to August / September 2010 Hot Topic
...just the way it is!
Response posted by Wendy Moore, Volunteer Coordinator, Brisbane, Australia on August 23, 2010
Barbara you challenge us to question the status quo rather than
just accepting it, to confront our own preconceived notions of traditional
gender attribute stereotypes and to start responding to calls to participate in
discussions and compacts about the volunteering sector rather than leaving it
all for someone else to do. I therefore felt compelled to respond to your hot
topic especially since no one else had done so as yet.
After reading my original response to your hot topic out loud I
suddenly realized that I had slipped into the tired but true rhetoric about
volunteering and volunteer management that is a common theme to most of my posts
or comments; Volunteering evolving
and yet parts of the sector not evolving, volunteer managers not being
recognized for the role etc. I have
been so busy swimming in it that I was not seeing it from a different
perspective.
I
recently put a post on I-Volunteer
(http://www.i-volunteer.org.uk/wendymoore/volunteer-managers-sabotage-themselves/)
about thinking of and writing down 7 successes that you personally had in the
last week. I was amazed with one
comment that I received from the other side of the globe where they had taken
this idea to their team meeting and felt good about their own individual
successes. So often we are focused
on the day to day tasks that we forget to take time out to look at our own
successes. This empowers us to do
more and say more.
I
believe that this is a good place to start, a confidence booster to encourage
active participation in newsgroups, online forums, hot topics and blogs. I must admit that I didn’t even know
what a blog was until this year let alone respond to one and now I even have a
blog of my own albeit a totally different unrelated subject but a blog all the
same. I would encourage
anyone interested in moving the sector forward to step out of their comfort zone
and at least post a comment to this hot topic. There is no right or wrong answer purely
and simply people’s opinions, your opinions.
Let's
hear what you think!
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