Todd Heistand, who designed this site by the way, has a great list of tools at his site: www.toddhiestand.com. What particularly caught my eye is a wordpress plug-in called “SimpleTags”. I sometimes tire of adding the Technorati Tags, so I may have to waste some time adding them here.
Todd also has the usual list of programs, including Bloglines and Firefox (two programs that I cannot imagine life without), but give his list a look. You may find a gem that has escaped your notice.
The season is about to drive into full-swing and I’m rather busy preparing for the volunteers. The chief task I have right now is to prepare a training time and a type of manual for the volunteers.
I am convinced that one of the best ways to care for volunteers is by preparing for volunteers. When you have your facts straight, when answers are at your finger tips, and you have plenty of coffee and tea waiting in the wings, you are in prime position to care for your volunteers.
There is nothing more dreadful than having to rush around and throw a job together for a volunteer. It ups the tension a few notches and makes them feel unwanted. I think of preparation as a preemptive thank you. Having a neat work place or an organized project ready says that you value their time and are on their side.
If volunteers knows that you’re watching out for them, their time will be spent well.
Jeff Dickson, the managing editor of the Manchester Journal came to the most recent Northshire Non-Profit Network meeting to give some pointers on press releases. Though I plan on posting my notes from the meeting at the NNN site, I wanted to share a few that I thought were particularly helpful:
That’s enough to get started. Stay tuned for the full post over at the NNN site.
Technorati Tags: press+release, writing
Stephen Morris, writer and publisher at the Public Press, gave a presentation last night at the Northshire Bookstore about book publishing. Having worked as both a writer and as a publisher, making every mistake in the book as he says, Stephen has really become quite an expert on the business.
If anything, Stephen gave many of those present a reality check into the publishing world. Even after publishing several fairly successful books and working through a very prominent literary agent, Stephen found that one can hardly live off the royalties of a book deal. In addition, he shared just how hard it is to find an agent or a publisher as a new writer. His company, the Public Press, provides an alternative format that is fairly cost effective and enables new authors to launch from a fairly good position. I took notes on the meeting and hope to share some additional tips in the near future. One tip that I need to share off the bat is that Stephen said he prefers to work with independent book stores who will rarely ever return purchased books. Unfortunately Borders and Barnes & Noble are known to ship back unsold books.
I will soon have a short story published in an anthology put together by the Southshire Roundtable called The Southshire Pepperpot. It will be available soon from Windstorm Creative for pre-orders.
The anthology is “an eclectic mix of prose and poetry full of whimsy, humor, reflection, wonder, along with a mouth-watering collection of recipes sure to inspire the cook or baker in us all.” Though I’m no chef, I had a fun time sharing my first experience with Turkish coffee while studying in Jerusalem. Included in the story is a recipe for Turkish coffee, something that I typically would prefer to leave to professionals!
After five days out of town in West Virginia for a little bit of hiking, we’re back home. In trying to catch up on my favorite blogs, I found a link at Jordon Cooper’s blog to a nice site full of links to open source software and other free downloads. Some of it is junk, some of it is just for fun, but there are some wonderful finds there. By using these products you can put aside, Norton Anti-Virus, Microsoft Office, Adobe pdf Maker, Adobe Photoshop, Dreamweaver, and a bunch of other programs that will run up a bill in the $1,000’s.
Check out econsultant’s list.
Technorati Tags: freeware
Writing Exercise: If you could make a bank that would hold anything but money, what kind of bank would it be? What would you put in it? Give yourself 15 minutes.
We’ll be out of town for a few days. Pending on how much it rains and whether or not I can remember my passwords, I may not be blogging too much over the weekend. I’ll be back by Tuesday for sure.
Employee Handbook Section 8.II.D.3.b.iv.
Take It Personal Days
From time to time conflicts may threaten the strategic effectiveness of the staffing resources. Should team members become entangled in such an inconvenient circumstance we offer “Take It Personal Days.” Implementing time away from the source of conflict will sufficiently diffuse all unwanted repurcussions from internal team member dissatisfaction.
Since insults and offenses typically proceed from the top of the strategic leadership paradigm, the following scale will be utilized in distributing “take it personal days”:
Executives: one day
Managers: two days
Engineers: three days
Marketing staff: three days
Accounting staff: four days
Clerks, secretaries, mail room: five days
Such a structure will create a healthy office family and will diffuse all undesired conflict while enabling executives and managers to justify demeaning and unjust treatment of team members. We believe that “Take It Personal Days” are the most efficient way to strategically eliminate employee dissatisfaction while maintaining existing paradigms and practices.
Technorati Tags: personal days
Volunteer Appreciation week is coming up and if you don’t yet have a plan to recognize your volunteers, time is running out. I have been giving it a lot of thought and have really wrestled with the appropriate way to recognize volunteers.
After talking with a few other volunteer coordinators, I have decided that it is typically not in an organization’s best interest to focus on individual recognition unless you have only a handful of volunteers. While there may be instances where it is appropriate to celebrate an unusual number of hours worked or consistent years served, it seems that it is always safe to provide a general kind of recognition.
Focusing on individual acheivement, not matter how you put it, can always run the risk of offending volunteers who give just as much if not even more to your organization. Some ideas I have for the week include post cards saying thanks, mass e-mails, press releases, and posters in major locations around town such as cafes and supermarkets.
Technorati Tags: appreciation
Ed Cyzewski: Author // Contemplative 