This month's volunteer interview is with our Membership Director, Diana DeMuth. Diana also does our Public Relations work and is in charge of circulation. She has participated in many of the group's events, including the Microsoft Extreme Event and the KVIE auction. You will find Diana at the membership table during the general meeting, just inside the main hall on the left side. Contact Diana for information on joining the SPCUG.
Stan: So...What is it like to be a volunteer?
Diana: "Fun and satisfying. It's an organization that I feel serves a wonderful purpose. I don't feel that my volunteer position requires a lot of demand on my time but is significant. It's satisfying in that I'm directly involved with the continued growth of the User group."
Stan: What SPCUG position are you now most involved in?
Diana: "I have two positions, Membership Director and Publicity Coordinator. Membership Director processes records throughout the month. Probably the time spent might be a total of 2-3 hours a month at my convenience, not including the Steering Committee and SPCUG monthly meeting. The Publicity position might be another hour per month when press releases are prepared and sent out."
Stan: Can you give me a brief description?
Diana: "Membership Director maintains the membership records. Throughout the month information is updated, new members are set up in the database. Renewal notices are sent out and processed and new membership cards sent out. Also, I'm pro-active in increasing membership and retention of existing ones."
Stan: What do you find most enjoyable about this work?
"I like the detail aspect of the position. Maintaining the records regularly is fun. And when I see that my effort actually can help keep up the membership numbers, it's very satisfying."
Stan: What do you NOT look forward to about the job?
Diana: "Nothing. I enjoy the position."
Stan: How has volunteer work been a plus for you?
Diana: "I've met some wonderfully knowledgeable people who share in the desire to continue and find ways to help the club grow. Working with other dedicated volunteers is rewarding. I've learned a lot. It's also a pleasant social environment."
If you would like to be one of the future month's interviews, please let me know and I will send you an interview request. I would like to end up with about 4-6 paragraphs of total material and I hope it will only take up a few minutes of your time.
Volunteers in Action
After much work in preparing for and setting up the first Online SIG, Doug Hohn has reluctantly resigned from the leadership position. I thank him for his efforts and look forward to working on future projects with him. In the absence of a replacement, the Steering Committee has decided to close the SIG and begin a new effort, to be called "Online Home Tutorial."
Coordinating this would involve keeping track of and assigning members to specific personal tutorials at a person's home. We already have four volunteers who will go out to a person's home for a 1-2 hour session. They are: Tim Cardozo, Brian Smither, Milt Hull and Ron Lambert. If you are interested in coordinating this work or in joining the team, e-mail Stan Morris.
Volunteer Thanks
If all goes according to plan, we will have outsourced transcription services starting at the April General meeting. [Plan A didn't work; we're trying Plan B for May. –Ed.] This service will relieve our overworked volunteers who have been doing the tedious job of transcribing our meeting for inclusion in Sacra Blue and eBlue. Terry Naleway, Crystal Friedrichs, Kathy Anderson, and, most recently and with great effort, Dennis Solheim and Twila Carver, have been doing this job for varying lengths of time. Crystal has certainly been doing this for years, as did Terry Naleway until fairly recently.
It has been a dedicated effort and I hope one that will be rewarded by our new plans to outsource this work. Thank you to all who have participated in transcribing our general meeting. If I have omitted your name, I apologize in advance and please let me know so I can also thank you.
Volunteer Openings
Please take a look at the following volunteer openings. If you think you can help, contact the "contact person" for that position, or send an e-mail to me.
- We need several volunteers who will visit as many computer stores as possible on a monthly basis, and ask them to have our membership information available to their customers. If we could get into the big stores like Fry's, CompUSA, and Computer Warehouse, we would probably get a lot of coverage. Other big computer sellers include office stores like OfficeMax, Staples, and Office Depot. Also, include electronic stores like Good Guys, Circuit City, Best Buys, and even Radio Shack. Then the other computer specific stores like the Gateway stores and all the mom-and-pop computer stores. Contact: Ken Hopkins.
- An additional volunteer(s) will be needed to do the research on area computer stores for an "area guide to computer stores" booklet. We would want to know the name of the store, all of their locations in the area (and phone numbers), the product lines they carry, and any additional stuff we think of. We can include a consultant section in the guide as well. This would be updated and published periodically as a PDF. This would be a handy resource for everyone. We could sell ad space in this publication, but not require it for entry. We would create a form for the volunteer or the store to fill out. Contact: Ken Hopkins.
- More newsletter writers are needed for Sacra Blue and eBlue. You would be writing tips for a tips column (may also be used as filler). Also would write news articles about current events, evaluate hardware and/or software and write product reviews, and write stories on how to you solved some computer problem. Contact: Ken Hopkins.
I am sure you will find this volunteer work very rewarding and it could even create some interesting opportunities for you. You may be surprised how little time is involved in some of these positions.
