Well, my last meeting as Religious Practices chair is over, except for the paperwork (I know, a job’s not finished, yada yada). Watching what’s going on, they’ll have fun next year, and I wish them well. But (taking a deep breath): I’m Free! I’m Free. No more setting up events, scrounging for volunteers. No more staying late to clean up. No more being the one everyone complains too because it is too expensive, or the food isn’t right, or the menu was too vegetarian, or the menu had too much non-vegetarian, or the service was too religious, or the service wasn’t religous enough.
Much as I love volunteering, there are times when you get plain burned out. My burnout started after Chanukah this year (which was a lot of work right after a week of running a conference), and was cemented by Tu B’Shevat. I wish the stuckee incoming chairman good luck. I’ll be glad to turn over my records.
Once that’s done, I’ll only have three more hats to transition: webmaster, newsletter production, and newsletter editor (I’ll keep providing computer support, as I have the backup of the software and the report generator). My wife will transition the gift cart and scrip, and perhaps we can have a year where we actually can be members of the congregation, instead of worker bees.
I’m looking forward to it. Just stop me before I volunteer again (or at least for another 12 months)!
[In case you’re curious, here are my current volunteering hats, in addition to my webpages (cahighways.org, mljewish.org, scjfaq.org) and mailing list (mail.liberal-judaism): international conference general chair, international conference tutorial chair, secretary for the conference’s sponsoring organization, religious practices chair for temple, webmaster for temple, newsletter for temple, computer support for temple, quasi-publicity for temple (by virtue of being the past publicity chair and doing all flyers for the NL), webmaster for YMCA parent-child program, member of the Industry Advisory Board for CSUN.]