[group-organizers] Recruiting Volunteers

[Ned Batchelder]

This is something I've tried to figure out also.  It's hard, because
people will say they want to help, but then might not follow through. 
I've tried to divide up the work into separate chunks, so that someone
can take on one small thing.  Try to be clear about what needs to be
done, and let them know that the most important thing is that they be
clear with you about when they aren't going to do it anymore.  The worst
is to not know if someone is doing the job or not.

Running a group for a long time, everyone gets the feeling that it's
under control (which it is).  But then when you want to do less, it's
not clear how to get people to take over! :)

--Ned.

On 8/17/17 3:34 PM, Don Sheu wrote:
> Folks, got any tidbits to share about activating and recruiting volunteers
> for your groups?
>
> Good news, last Wednesday on August 9th, we convened our 3rd anniversary
> meeting. About 200 of our 4300 members turned out in the room at Redfin.
>
> Moving forward, I need to get our current activities to a state of
> self-sufficiency with volunteers activated and effective at running say our
> monthly meeting with little help from me.
>
> What I need to stave off is burn-out. I've been feeling it creep up. For
> the future what I'd like to do is start working on two projects: 1) a form
> of a trade association for software engineers (more AARP than Teamsters
> Union); and 2) launch the John Hunter Free School of Python.
>
> Recruiting volunteers to take over the mountains I've already climbed and
> can describe will help me mount my attempts to summit new challenges.
> That'll help me keep fresh and activated in our group and the global Python
> community.
>
> All your thoughts welcome.
>
>
>