Greetings folks!
I’m excited to jump into the new year with spunk, energy, and creativity! Where do I get all this spunk, energy, and creativity, you might ask? Well, let me let you in on a little secret. As Volunteer Managers, we have these monthly meetings where we gather together from all around King and Snohomish counties. The meetings are appropriately called Professional Gatherings and they are where the magic happens! I often leave the Professional Gathering with renewed motivation, fresh ideas, and the joy of meeting new or very seasoned colleagues who are doing similar work. Join us this coming year as we gather to share ideas, challenges, resources, successes, best practices, and the frogs we have to swallow sometimes. (More to come on that one!)
So…
Mark your 2012 calendars for:
- Wednesday, January 25: 11:30-1:00pm @ Little Bit in Woodinville, WA
- Wednesday, February 22: 11:30-1:00pm @ Noel House in Seattle
- Wednesday, March 28: 11:30-1:00pm @ Pacific Science Center in Seattle
and
Send us your thoughts and ideas for future discussion topics by clicking HERE.
Contributed by Katie Nelson.
Thanks, Katie. It is so great to know the future dates. You’ve been really great to have on board for the professional gathering coordination. Thanks again.
I think a good topic of discussion would be cultural competency and assumptions. How they can be useful sometimes in screening potential volunteers, and how they can also be a source of misunderstanding and negative interactions. We all work with so many new people each day with new inquiries, calling references, cold calling, bringing in groups of 10 volunteers, etc. How much can we rely on our intuitions and when do we strictly follow guidelines?
Thanks for the responses, Randi and Lindsey. Great topic idea, Lindsey. We do work in ver ydiverse settings and with a wide array of folks. Anyone else have ideas for relevant topic discussions?