Originally Posted by
Onebyone
I don't know why some guild members come to meetings. They sit there, never help with any fundraising, or bring show and tell, volunteer for anything, and don't participate in classes, swaps, challenges, or demos. Yet expect to be entertained for a couple of hours without contributing anything.
[QUOTE=scrappingfaye58;8646885]Onebyone... such great input! You hit it on the head about non-participation. We do require committee participation (and many are very simple participation) and contributing a quilt to be donated to a kids organization.
One of the things that made me want to join the guild I did was how flexible they were in participation expectations. To be fair, every member of our guild participates at a basic level just by paying dues! I am not currently in a space to be able to spend hours at committee meetings or sew-ins or to go away for a retreat/workshop weekend, but that hasn't been a problem. While it's been made clear that the guild can't run without active members, they've given so many opportunities for members to be active within their personal restrictions/limits. Some examples? Having short (less than an hour) volunteer opportunities such as sorting fabric donations right after the guild meetings so people who may have limited time or not have easy transportation can still help out in a social setting; asking for volunteers to reach out to (email/phone) different organizations/stores to determine needs or opportunities for advertising or seeking donations; identifying opportunities for tasks to be broken into chunks so people can collaborate using the skills/abilities they have, like having donated tops (flimsies) from one member go to someone who can layer and baste to someone who can do the quilting and then off to a fourth person to make and attach a binding. Round robin mini-courses also allow someone who might not be confident/comfortable presenting to the entire guild to share a skill or favourite approach or tool/notion to a small group.
Some of these activities could even be expanded to become (part of a) program/activity?
I've been on non-profit boards and councils and executives in the past and I know how important those roles are (and how time-consuming they are) but it's been so nice to be in a group that recognizes and actively promotes the little efforts that can help as well. :-)