Experience promoting districts in Minnesota

[Carolyn_Grace]

Originally Posted by Jon Stratis

The difficult part of getting new key volunteers isn't getting them to read the rules.

Yes. This. There is a lot that goes into recruiting and training GREAT Key Volunteers. Some personalities are best fit for certain roles, and that takes time to figure out. Certainly in a crunch, anyone can fill in as a Scorekeeper for an event, but it would be draining on the FTA to have to babysit and train new Scorekeepers at every event they work.

It's been said a few times that the team experience is what matters the most. Key Volunteers can make or break a team experience. An overwhelmed Lead Queuer can lead to rushing teams along and stressing out drive teams, and other volunteers, leading to a bad team experience.

One other thing that I take into consideration when trying to recruit new Key Volunteers is the likelihood that a person will stay in our area for a while. When trying to build up a base of Key Volunteers, you don't want to hinder growth by training someone who may move to a new area in a couple years. It's for this reason why it's sometimes difficult to choose college students as Key Volunteers. Unless they have deep roots in the area, it's likely that they will move somewhere else once they graduate.

This doesn't mean that the lack of volunteers is an issue to STOP pursing Districts. Just that it's an obstacle, that is worth acknowledging. With time, this obstacle will be less of an issue, but it's not a simple problem to have.