by
Kathleen Beitiks
National Volunteer Week will be celebrated April
23-29, giving the California Genealogical Society (CGS) the opportunity to
extend a big THANK YOU to members who donate their time and talents to our
119-year-old organization. Volunteers are the heart of CGS and we couldn’t do
it without them.
As the Volunteer
Coordinator for the CGS, once a month I tally all of the hours that volunteers
to CGS contribute to our organization and I am continually blown away by the
numbers.
My tallies always
come up with more than 500 hours a month, but truth be told, there are plenty
more hours that don’t always get counted. In my conversations with volunteers,
I always come across people who say, “Oh, I didn’t log in those calls I did
from home because it only took me a few minutes,” or “l love doing this, so I
never think of adding it to the sign-in sheet.”
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| Life Member and long-time Volunteer: Jim Sorenson Photo courtesy of Jane Lindsey |
Why Volunteer?
Once I read an article about “why” people volunteer and
it contained a list of 70 reasons. As you can imagine, the reasons ranged from “for
fun!” or “to pass on what I have learned to others (and learn something
myself!)” or “to meet new people” to “because someone asked me!”
When I asked a friend why she decided to volunteer for
another organization, this was her reason: “My husband retired and he was
driving me crazy at home all of the time.” OK, so maybe that doesn’t fall under
the “altruism” category, but it just goes to show you that everyone has his or
her own reason for volunteering.
How has volunteering
for CGS evolved over the years?
CGS has been around since 1898 and many people do not
realize that at one time it had paid staff members. So, it makes me even more
impressed with our team when I realize how much work our volunteers have taken
upon themselves to keep our organization thriving.
We have all different types of volunteers: those who
commit once a month or once a week, those who are available for individual
events, those who want to work from home and some who want to be on call.
What kinds of things
do our volunteers work on?
Here is a partial list of the areas: Book Repair, Capital Campaign,
Desk and Patron Services, Education Programs, Events, Finance, Investments,
Library Services, Manuscript Collections, Membership, Outreach, Publications
and Marketing, Research & Look-ups, Strategic Planning, Technology, and our
Website.
Increasingly, we have been hearing from volunteers who
want help, but would prefer to “Job
Share.” For instance, the “Events Coordinator” position is a good candidate
for job sharing. It’s an opportunity to help CGS coordinate events that educate
our members about different aspects of genealogy and even bring in revenue so
we can offer more services.
TH
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| Kathleen Beitiks, Volunteer Coordinator Photo courtesy of Linda Okaazaki |
Copyright © 2017 by California Genealogical Society
