Teen Volunteers, Bulletin Boards, Etc.

1. Re: the craft/color sheets- to make it an official announcement, I have placed a file drawer's worth of coloring sheets, etc. in the file cabinet just under the XL Ellison dies. Feel free to use or abuse at your leisure.

2. The Bulletin Board Volunteers are meant to save time for us all by being self-directed and artistically capable. That's why I was very particular about how I recruited them. I have only received a few entries, but at least one seems like she might work out. If you want to change a bulletin board, and think a volunteer might save you some time, let me know and I can give you her number.

3. Re: Idle Volunteers- Xandi approached me about what to do if teen volunteers finish a task and are idle while staff is with a patron, so I wanted to address/open it for discussion. My inclination is to not worry about it if the volunteer is not being disruptive. Let them do homework while they're waiting for you to get back- it's a good use of their time if we're not able to get to them right away. And pay attention to those who are particularly self-directed, because we'll call them back and use them again! When worrying about teen volunteers, or spending time trying to figure out how to make them useful takes up more time than they save us by volunteering, there is 0bviously a problem. I'm only saying all this because I, too, have been stressed out over idle volunteers. Only recently am I realizing that when it comes down to it, in this particular setting, our time is more valuable than theirs. A volunteer who accomplishes even 1 hour of work in a two hour period is still a volunteer who has given us an hour of free labor. If volunteers are that unhappy with occasionally being bored, this isn't the place for them.
All that said, let's discuss...