WiserEarth Governance
Rights, Obligations, and Relationships of All WiserEarthlings
This group emerged out of the WiserEarth Partners meeting held on December 13. Our intention is to open this group up to all that join and participate in WiserEarth.
GROUP DETAILS
Created: Dec 17, 2007
Updated: Sep 17, 2009
Membership: Invitation Only
Semi-Private
What it is like to be an AVC
Access Privileges
This is a wiki page and the text can be edited!! So instead of adding the content to the discussion, whe can add it all to one document.
To add content to this page please click the "Edit this Page" above and then add your comments directly to the page. If you have questions, please let Erik know. Thanks! This is some great stuff.
From: "Eliza Penick" <Eliza.Penick@heifer.org>
Hello!
Hope everyone is doing well.
As a former AVC, I thought it would be useful to do a write-up of the challenges & successes of this work, to give to the other regions & CRCs.
Our NW region has a lot to contribute in this area & I definitely want to include things from you guys. Obviously some of this we have covered before in workshops, but I wanted to pick your brains a little more to get the key components, as well as anything new.
It would be really awesome if you could email me:
--successes (tips, what works, etc)
--challenges (frustrations, setbacks, & ideally constructive ideas/methods for moving past them)
Don’t worry about writing them out nicely. I’m compiling & writing it all up this week.
Thank you for sharing your expertise! I think it’ll be useful to other volunteers.
Successes:
- Having a tight knit group who have become friends and we know we can trust and lean on
- Having a leader (like Eliza)
- Match new volunteers with experienced volunteers at events
- Regional Heifer Us so that we get to learn from our peers
- Passionate, fully committed volunteers who make Heifer a priority
- I am a more informed, better aware, more compationate, happier person though volunteering with Heifer having the chance to get to know the types of people the Heifer attracts.
- Volunteers who study the ecological, economic, political, spiritual and culltural traditions of our global community and places Heifer has projects
- Volunteers who study Hiefer materials, website, take Heifer U classes, educate themselves about our work and stay connected with Heifer staff and volunteers
- Volunteers who are eager tp share and seek out opportunities to present Heifer in and around their community
- Volunteers who deeply care about the our planet and see themselves as part of the whole
- Volunteers who feel priviledged to represnt Heifer, understanding it's value in helping to create a better world
Challenges:
- Lack of the above successes
- dealing with frustrations of people not following through or meeting an energetic person who you never hear from again
- no direct channels for volunteers to contact folks at Headquarters. Some of the marketing materials and approaches are not appropriate for our communities ( this is a topic on its own that deserves its own wiki)
Do folks at headquarters want to be contacted by volunteers? Is there a person for that? I've written letters to the editor of World Ark, and found my way to Materials people.......It would be good to feel more connected with the organization, not only our regional folks. Heifer U's are a good way, are there others?
- such a large gap between us and the folks we are helping. Rarely do we don't get to see the direct results of our work and meet project partners. Volunteers and donors want more contact with projects and project partners to feel more connected to the work.
- Lack of having meetings that are on time, have clear agendas, follow thru channels, clear facilitators (where's spell check when you need it?) meeting organized and effective without being rigid - (working on this, thanks to the speaker from NW Earth Institute)
- Hard to create community among the group where we share potluck, ideas, books, articles, movies, Heifer materials and information. We suggested doing the Menu for the Future, that may happen.
- We'd like less printed materials - too much waste. Looking into creating our own Cal north bay website for news and other information
Comments (1 - 7 of 7)
|
|
I know what you mean about needing a spell checker. I am a horrible speller. If you use Internet Explorer, check out http://iespell.com/. Or if you use Mozila FireFox, it has a speller.
We haven't nailed down the details for MFTF yet. But I suspect we will will do it weekly. Monthly might be too big a gap in time.
Not sure if I understand your question about the blank page. |
|
Oops, I meant decides to do the Menu for the future. Where's spell check? I can't live without it.
|
|
|
Eric, I don't understand why I had this blank... uh.. page? and then my reply to Eliza's questions came in on the page below. Still learning, needing the language and bumbling along. I'm old. :0)
I hope our group decided to do the Menu for the Future too. Do you plan to take a chapter a month? |
|
|
Since I am just eating lunch and because I think this stuff is fun, I attempted to consolidate Caroline and my ideas that are similar.
|
|
|
Great stuff Caroline! I hope that you don't mind but I copied your content into the main page. At the top of the page you can click "edit this page" and then modify what is there and add new stuff. Thanks for trying the tool! This sure beats email!
|
|
|
Successes:
Passionate, fully committed volunteers who make Heifer a priority
Volunteers who study the ecological, economic, political, spiritual and culltural traditions of our global community and places Heifer has projects
Volunteers who study Hiefer materials, website, take Heifer U classes, educate themselves about our work and stay connected with Heifer staff and volunteers
Volunteers who are eager tp share and seek out opportunities to present Heifer in and around their community
Volunteers who deeply care about the our planet and see themselves as part of the whole
Volunteers who feel priviledged to represnt Heifer, understanding it's value in helping to create a better world
Challenges:
Lack of the above
Having meetings that are on time, have clear agendas, follow thru channels, clear facilitators (where's spell check when you need it?) meeting organized and effective without being rigid - (working on this, thanks to the speaker from NW Earth Institute)
Creating community among the group where we share potluck, deas, books, articles, movies, Heifer materials and information. We suggested doing the Menu for the Future, that may happen.
Do folks at headquarters want to be contacted by volunteers? Is there a person for that? I've written letters to the editor of World Ark, and found my way to Materials people.......It would be good to feel more connected with the organization, not only our regional folks. Heifer U's are a good way, are there others?
Volunteers and donors want more contact with projects and project partners to feel more connected to the work.
We'd like less printed materials - too much waste. Looking into creating our own Cal north bay website for news and other information
|
Wow guys, great stuff!! I am in agreement with all that's been written so far, with two semi-exceptions - contacting HQ directly and fewer printed materials. I haven't had much cause to want/need to contact HQ except (ironically) when trying to get printed materials and finding out that they weren't all available from one source. (Heifer Ed/U brochures, brochures on monthly/credit card giving plans, and gender equity brochures.)
Some nuts and bolts from me; I'm sure Tracy will add her own:
*Whenever possible, get pet-able animals for your events/booths/tables. They are a huge draw of both children and adults and start conversations with people who might have never stopped at the booth/table. Plus, it makes the booth much more exciting for volunteers to work at! Also, we find that having a few copies of the World Arks around draws people in who otherwise might not've been drawn.
*Set your own pace for accomplishing goals, even if it seems really s-l-o-w. It's so easy to want to jump in and do everything RIGHTNOW, especially like when coming home from a great Heifer U, :) but the pace usually can't be sustained for a long period of time and then it's easy to get depressed. We have to "be realistic" (whatever! grumble, grumble) and remember we're in this for the long haul. Conversely, don't stop dreaming big! :)
*Keep in touch with like-minded Heifer folks to help sustain the energy and enthusiasm. I read 4-5 Heifer volunteer blogs, pretty regularly, just to see what others are doing. It sometimes gives me ideas I've never thought of and always makes me feel connected and not just stranded out here on our own.
One frustration is Heifer's own slowness with the times - like the organization of the website, the lack of ability to purchase products online, the communication of new things from the top down, the lack of the kind of forums (like this one we're building ourselves) for volunteers to share info with each other. (I look at us sort of like Heifer salespeople and yet sometimes, we're the last to know about the newest and greatest product or deal! Or, if not the last to know, then we're finding out when the general public does and that's just not quite right to me.)
Finally, thanks to you all for doing this! Things will be different for those coming behind us. :)