Volunteering

Ok, I'm not a saint. I have never claimed to be a one, nor the most organized person, nor brilliant, nor many other things. But the one thing I have always tried to do is volunteer my time in organizations that my kids participate in as a way of giving back. I think that is only fair. When they were little, I was on the board for the Coastside Mothers Club for 6yrs in various roles. When they were in public school, I volunteered in the classroom. For the last 2yrs, I've been on the board of the of the AYSO. The AYSO is the one I understand the least. It is a strictly volunteer organization and we have over 300 kids participating every year but we have the hardest time filling board positions or even basic things like coaches and refs. For the first 1½yrs, it was my job to make sure we had refs for all the U10 and above games. We had 5 regular refs and up to 21 slots that needed to be filled each week and one of our main refs was also a coach. We had reffing clinics, we bought lunches for the refs, we offered a gift certificate in appreciation at the end of the year but still, we are always short on refs.

Now I am doing the website. Should be simple but apparently schedules have been added into that job (should be a separate person doing those but again, lack of volunteers strikes). I should have known after being webmaster for the CMC that it would suck but I hoped for a bit more professionalism. When I helped out doing these before for our old RC (regional commissioner), I was given everything I needed and was thanked for doing them on short notice (old webmaster was out of town and I was doing it as a favor). This time, with our new RC, it's a nightmare and it's gotten to the point where I seriously doubt I will be on the board next year. I made the schedules but didn't finalize them as I had NO coach names at all. I kept asking for them so I could give him final schedules and was ignored. Then yesterday (while I'm out all day), he's emailing wanting the final schedules. I told him again once I got home that I needed the coach names. I did give him excel sheets and pdfs with no coach names so then his wife turns around and puts the coach names in and he doesn't say anything to me about why he couldn't have provided me the information. Making it look like I didn't do my job. WTF?! This is after dealing with him telling me to bug our Coach Admin to get the practice schedule filled in on the website. Um, I told the CA that I had everything ready to go and was willing to update the website daily as needed so coaches would know what time slots were available. He NEVER contacted me. When told I needed to go "liaise" with him, I told the RC that I had already done that and received no communication back. When I update the stuff on the website per the RCs request, I tell him when it's done and get no reply and then a week later, he'll ask me to update something that I already did and told him I had done. It's beyond frustrating dealing with this total ineptitude. Our season starts at the beginning of the Sept and the upper divisions still don't have a place to practice. And the game schedule he had me make may be totally wrong because we may have to change where our U10s are playing. Seriously?! He was gone for half the summer season when things for the fall season should have been getting finalized.

Seriously, what is up with volunteer organizations that this is what we end up with? People want what they provide but aren't willing to step-up to do even the smallest things for them and then we end up with people who either do not have the time or the competence to do the job in half the positions which jeopardize the whole thing. I know I do not have the time to take a more active role like RC which is why I refused to do it even those the old RC kept trying to get me to do it. She didn't have the time and was a bit of a hard-nose but she got the job done and things ran smoothly. This guy kicked her out once he took over and has refused to listen to anyone who has been on the board for years (he started as RC in Jan and was not on the board prior), taken all the AYSO classes (as opposed to him who missed the conference entirely), been RC before (instead he's pushing them out). It's just insane and for myself, I don't have the time or patience to deal with this crap. I don't ask for much when I volunteer but geez, at least give me what I need to do my job without my having to freaking harp on people (cause I do enough of that with my kids every day) and an occasional acknowledgment, just a simple thanks to let me know that you know it's been done and maybe, just maybe, checking my emails BEFORE asking me to do something that I've already done and told you that I've done. I'm not saying I'm irreplacable. I'm not saying that my time is more valuable than another person's but it is my time and it's not something I have a lot of that isn't taken up with other stuff so I get very upset when what time I can give is not appreciated in the slightest and feels like it's being wasted.

Is that wrong of me? Maybe. As I've said, I'm no saint. But when I look around at my house and all I have to get done for my family and then how much time I end up wasting on this, it's just not worth it to me. It's a selfish attitude and I know it. I own up to that. Our old RC didn't even have a child in the program the whole time she was RC but no one else would step up to take over and she didn't want to see the program die so she stayed on. She made sure everything got done when no one else would help. She worked full time. I look at that and I can admire that but I just don't have that in me right now to give. Maybe when my kids are older (like hers were) but not at this time. I don't need the extra frustration and if that takes my name off the list for a possible sainthood, so be it.