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by Penny Kern

My life has changed over the last few months so I was very glad when I was asked to be a blogger. I worked for 17 years as a volunteer and program manager for the Girl Scouts and I retired Oct. 1, 2007. I went from being very involved in every community in Aroostook County and many across the state to having to check my calendar to remember what day it was. It is so different on this side of things - trying to be a volunteer and not having much success at it. I thought it might be helpful to you if I shared some of my trials and tribulations.

First, there is a plan for life after 60+. Drifting through the rest of life without any direction or goal just isn’t me. Because of that, the organization and the positions I’d be interested in have to match my plan. To recruit me, a volunteer coordinator would need to know the mission and vision of their organization, why the position I’m asking for is important to that mission and how, using my skills and experience, I can make a difference.

Oh, I just found the best publication. It’s called, “Recasting Retirement. New perspectives on Aging and Civic Engagement.” It highlights the findings from research co-sponsored by Civic Ventures and Temple University Center for Intergenerational Learning with funding provided through a generous grant from the Helen Andrus Benedict Foundations. It has validated all my thoughts on retiring and trying to become involved in the community as a volunteer.

“I love the time I have to myself, but I still have lots of ideas and there’s no one to tell.”

Volunteers want to be part of the “bigger picture”, especially retired mature adults who are used to being included in the decision making process. We want to be part of the “team.” A quote from the report suggests this - “I’d like to apply the skills and knowledge I’ve acquired over a lifetime and use them to help someone.”

Second, as you can probably tell from the information above, I do not want to answer phones, open mail and take on the tasks staff people think are important but not important enough to hire someone or to include in someone’s job description. I don’t want to take a paying position away from someone who needs work - I want something for ME that will help the community, meet a need, and make me feel like my time and efforts are worth it.

I have a couple more ideas for recruiting someone like me:

I’m on a fixed income so driving to meetings, training and other opportunities is difficult. Computer and conference calls work best. Also, the reason I retired was to spend more time with my growing grandchildren so I don’t want to waste time driving too far away from home.

I like organizing and establishing programs, systems, and opportunities for others. I’m terrible at maintaining these things but I love being part of the “beginning.” Oh, yes, and I do not like being told what to do so I’m a much better team player who’s in on the ground floor. That’s an important trait to find out about people of any age. There are those of us who like to build and those who like to make sure it stays built. If you know which volunteers do the best job at just that one aspect of volunteering for your organization - you have a huge advantage.

And, I’ll repeat again - the mission. I want to work to accomplish (or help accomplish) the mission of the organization. I don’t want public recognition (although, for some that’s important) but I want to feel that what I do helps meet the need of the community that the mission was written to do. For instance, I have been a Red Cross volunteer since 1976. I have taught First Aid and CPR - that has been my one and only responsibility and have loved it - still do. One of my goals for my next life is to help my community become better prepared for disasters so I recently joined the Red Cross disaster team. I have no desire to be a disaster volunteer - my plan is pulling me in the direction of providing training to those who want to become disaster volunteers. My satisfaction for doing this - when there is a disaster, I know that my efforts helped those disaster volunteers be the best that they could be for those in need.

I’d be interested in your thoughts on how to recruit and retain people over 60. We are a growing population and we are different, how can you get us involved in your organization?

Penny Kern is a recently retired volunteer manager from Aroostook County.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 5th, 2008 at 9:13 pm and is filed under Generations, Recruitment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.