Gotong-royong

We had a gotong-royong at our center last year to tidy up our store room. During our last Board Meeting, we decided it's about time we have another gotong-royong to tidy up the other areas of our center - we want our center to look tidier and at the same time to have a more systematic way of keeping things... particularly our files. So we fixed it for yesterday.

I didn't realise yesterday was Easter Sunday until one of the volunteers emailed me to say he wouldn't be able to attend because it was a big day for him. Ah well, we had already decided on the date, so might as well proceed with whoever was able to make it.

We were supposed to start at 2.30 pm but I got to the center rather early. I wanted to see the recent bank statements to check on the cash/cheque deposits and online transfers in our account for sponsorship purposes. No doubt it's the treasurer's job to keep track of all the money going in and out, but as the coordinator for the Education Sponsorship for Children who keeps the individual records of each sponsored child and sponsor, I need to make sure my account tallies with the treasurer's.

Nearing 2.30 pm, one volunteer called to say he'd be late. Then another volunteer SMSed to say she was still stuck with a business client. Then another volunteer called to say she'd be late too. With the exception of 2 volunteers who notified me earlier they wouldn't be able to make it, the rest who failed to turn up didn't bother to inform. Only 5 volunteers turned up (that's almost 25% turnout) , but I guess that was good enough to get the job done.

So we rearranged whatever that needed rearrangement, threw away whatever needed to be thrown away, reorganised whatever that needed to be reorganised.

Sorry, no pics of the office area - that room is for authorised personnel only! Hehe...

We now need to buy hard cover files to replace the paper files we've been using. It wasn't necessary initially when we first started as there weren't much to file anyway. But a few years down the road, it's about time we have a proper filing system. Otherwise, we'd have trouble looking for any info. Since we are all volunteers and there's nobody working full time at the center, we are now rather dependent on the respective coordinators to get whatever documents or info.

I'd better start keeping a hard copy of the Sponsorship Programme details too. As it is, I'm keeping the details in soft copy (with a few backups lah). If I don't keep hard copies at the center, and suddenly something bad happens to me (na'uzubillah), the other volunteers may not know where to continue with the programme.

Yeah, yeah, do with less printing, save the environment bla bla bla... but most of the volunteers are still old school material. Still more comfortable with hard copies rather than soft copies. The most important thing is to ensure that should anything happen to any one of us, the rest will know where to find the necessary documents and info.