The daily commute offers plenty of opportunities to think about anything and everything. Just as well as sometimes there is quite a lot to think about. Having that thinking time forced on me has been a good thing. I enjoy being engaged and, given half a chance, would spend every waking moment doing something. Being still and having time to consider things carefully is necessary for having an orderly life and to actually appreciate some of the things one does. The commute allows me to do this.
One of the things I do in my spare time is run a volleyball club for amateur players. It is a fairly young club and there is always lots to do to keep it going. I have been running one club or another for the last decade but its always been somebody else's club: the university's volleyball club or some other well-established club wherever I ended up in, so I was more dispassionate about them. All of that, however, provided valuable training ground and lots of experiences to draw on now that I am running one I helped set up. The courage to do so came from having encountered and survived a lot previously but there are challenges that are still new and unexpected. Perhaps that is the interesting bit that draws one to the task.
There is a lot to consider on a daily basis. The new season is about to start so there is a lot to sort out to get things off the ground. The lack of a venue for pre-seasonal training was one. By thinking through the various bits of news gathered from various sources we did, in the end, find somewhere we could go to for a few weeks until our venue becomes available again. The teams need more players, new coaches- more things to think about. Who have I met in the near past that would fit the bill? How about the people from the season before? How many are coming back for sure and how many new people will we need to pick up to keep us safe for the season?
The main concern is the men's team, which is fairly new. Where the women's team consists of friends the men's team is a different kettle of fish as it consists of random players that are joining because they want to play rather than because they are friends. This produces a different set of challenges. Finding enough players to form a team is the first. Providing means to build team cohesion is the second.
As usual there are all the technical and personal problems found whenever human beings gather but in the instance of the men's team there isn't as much goodwill as in the women's team, where the players were friends to start with. Negotiating this was tricky in the first season and now in our second we have the problem of players leaving, some for better things, others because they were dissatisfied with the club in some way. The former is not really a problem except the others left behind may feel just that- left behind- and so helping them keep spirits up is a major task. Of the second group there leaves much to consider. If the people leaving did rightfully have a complaint then the issue is how to avoid the same situation arising again. If they didn't then its a case of making it evident that this is so and not allowing them to poison the team. In any case it would be necessary to find new players and getting that message to the right people is a challenge. How do we advertise ourselves to the big, wide world?
Money is always a worry. We have to make ends meet just as any organisation. We don't operate on a profit and that means we have little to cushion ourselves if things go wrong. Managing club finances such that it is fair for members is a fine art.
As with all things to do with sports, fairness is the catchword and being fair to all our members takes a lot of time to achieve.
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