AmeriCorps/Nonprofit Blog
I have returned from a wonderful vacation... and I'm trying to reconcile the idea of work with my idea of idleness. Well, not really. I'm quite content to be at work (now that I'm here. Last night and this morning were different!). I'll try and get a hold of some vacation pictures and get them up on the site, but for them I'll have to depend on Mom (hint, hint!).
The network continues to function, but now our email is messed up. Our webhost tells us that our server is full, which it's not. They've promised to fix it, but so far it's not fixed yet. Meanwhile, I can send out messages, but can't get anything in return. Most frustrating.
It's Doug's (our new Executive Administrator) first day in the office. Right now he's reading through the Board of Directors meeting notes. What a page turner! I'm glad I don't have to read it.
With it's usual lightening speed, Habitat has not given us any indication if they're going to allow us an extension on our SHOP grant or not. Or maybe they have, but I can't recieve any emails, so I can't know! Grr. Sometimes I think that maybe Janitor John is right: computers suck.
Hooray! The Habitat email seems to be working again (for now, anyway). Hooray, hooray. Also, Joshua discovered a fun feature of our webhost: an event calendar. I've thoroughly enjoyed playing with that and setting it up.
Nancy showed me how to write out deposit slips for our two accounts. I guess that's going to be part of my job for now. Kind of fun. I'll get to make the runs to the bank to make deposits. Money! Cool.
We now have water on the Paine Street site! I had to go out and open up the house for the water meter man. I won't have to worry about running out of drinking water! Tomorrow I get to help supervise the site. A group from the Worcester Ice Cats (local hockey team) will be coming out. I think we'll be finishing up the framing of some basement walls.
It's very interesting, adjusting to a new "boss." I mean, so far, I'm the one who knows what's going on... I guess that means I don't get to relinquish responsibility and stress yet. Although, I feel better just having someone else around. I can at least verify--occasionally--the "stuff" that I do.
Wednesday I helped supervise the group from the Ice Cats, the local hockey team. No, the actual hockey players weren't there, just the behind-the-scenes staff, and they were great. It was so nice to be out on site and really working with the volunteers. And then, when Leo had to leave, I was in charge (dance of joy). We started framing a wall, hung a door (with great ease, I must say. I managed to look like quite the expert!), and then did a massive site clean-up and materials organization. The day went so fast.
Today I attended the house-warming of the Worcester Community Housing Resources's latest rehab: a beautiful re-done historic home, transformed into three condoes. That's the kind of project I could really get into--except that rehab like that is difficult to do with volunteers. Oh, but the project looked like such a success! Fun, fun, fun.
I've been researching (always researching, but not so often doing... such a lot of work seems to accomplish so little... but it's all necessary, I know) volunteer practices of "wooing," retaining, organizing, etc. I've found some interesting things on Habitat's online library of resources--sample brochures and what not. I'm trying to find a way of organizing our construction volunteers into "crews" or at least some crew leaders that we can depend upon to help out with certain tasks. But also of contacting and retaining. We get lots of interest, but not always a lot of follow-through. Not that we're really hurting for volunteers! But we need to develop more leaders, etd....
