I’m not, this is something I’ve been thinking about.
People talk about getting an “executive” - it’s the number small jobs that we have to send out for labor on that would make a maintenance person a better choice, IMO. I’m not sure what this “executive” would do except call someone to do it. I can’t imagine this person telling committees how to operate. We’re open 168 hours a week.
“Executive”, at least in the organizational sense, doesn’t refer to a single person - rather it refers to “Persons delegated various authorities and tasks, who serve at the pleasure of the Board, and who manage the day to day affairs of the Space”. It could be 5, 10, or a 100 individuals, as are needed to perform these functions. They don’t have to be paid positions, and I would expect that they handle the routine stuff - like gathering estimates, supervising contractors, bringing problems to the Boards attention, dealing with bad behavior, handling emergency repairs, inspections, calling plumbers, etc. These people would have titles and specific responsibilities, and would be selected for their abilities and character.
I will note that we already have executives who are empowered by the board to perform those functions. We call them committee chairs. Further, they don’t have to personally do much of that work and are further empowered to delegate to other volunteers to help spread the work around.
Most of these responsibilities fall upon our two most internally focused committee chair persons; infrastructure and logistics, but some aspects fall to other chairs or even procurement officers. All of which serve executive functions within DMS. When board members act as volunteers to handle some of these functions, such as gathering estimates, they are doing so as volunteers working for the respective committee chairs who have the ultimate responsibility.
If everybody will kindly provide the following information, I’ll do a total analysis breakdown estimate on savings and write up the proposal. Please keep your replies succinct.
How much money has been delegated by the Board to all committees or individuals for equipment and projects in the last 12 months?
How much money is given to all Committees for their monthly disposables budget?
What is DMS’s current monthly allotment towards long-term savings?
What are our long-term goals for savings and amounts?
@Tapper In this hypothetical system, how much would you recommend tempting Committees with for your work installing those electrical outlets?
@ESmith Do you have a ballpark estimate for a contractor to change all light bulbs?
How much money would anyone be personally tempted into accepting towards their chosen Committee for attending Robert’s award ceremony?
I’ve compiled a list of Robert’s, Brandon’s and Erik’s job titles from the Volunteer Opportunities category. If Directors, Candidates, and Volunteers would also compile and post a bullet point list of tasks they’d like done we can knock this out by next Board Meeting and watch the invisible hand of the market at work.
I think that we need incentives to increase the rate of volunteers and bounties is just one possibility.
I have an impression that of the 1,500 or so members the number of people who volunteer and do work for the space is low, wish we had data on that. Wish we also had data on how many members think the space is really a business and all these issues are SEP. (Somebody Else’s Problem)
For classes we “solved” this with honorarium. Committee always benefits, individuals can benefit, etc.
I could see some potential with a Maintenance person.
Maybe we could do more to recognize volunteers?
Great Idea! We have wall space…
And the need/expectation for volunteerism, even if it just 10 minutes per visit to the 'Space of something/anything, needs to be more clearly communicated and emphasized at Open House tours, New Member Orientation, and any other general on-boarding activities/events. Simply repeating in a rote manner that “we are an all volunteer organization” just doesn’t seem sufficient to me.
OK, this prompted a google and top hit was this: https://www.trackitforward.com/ - 0-25 volunteers is free, 26-100 is $15/month, etc. (pricing) - might be something worth investigating.
If we had a volunteer tracking system like this, who would own the account? Logistics chair maybe?
Anyway, think it might be something worth checking out and I may have hijacked this thread here, might want a fork.
The last PR chair recently started a volunteer /member spotlight on the front bulletin. I think he only had a chance to focus on one person so far but it might be something the next chair, @Adam_Oas would be interested in continuing.
There was also some talk at a recent meeting of having a volunteer development group.