If collective data provided important information to do your job or any other aspects affecting your world, then you can understand how LRCTU heavily depends upon our volunteer data. Not just in the volunteer work that we do, but the volunteer hours involved in that work.
Our volunteer hours justify grant requests, donations, and give the GSMNP data they need for planning and funding. This data is the very heart of survival for LRCTU, its mission, and how we can help the GSMNP Fisheries.
Using the current national data for what a volunteer hour is worth, each hour entered is plus $34.79 making every volunteer hour NOT ENTERED, NEGATIVE $34.79. Not entering hours cancels out someone else’s hard work!
In the last 4 years, volunteers donated 13,314 hours which is equivalent to donating $460,000.00 to LRCTU and GSMNP!
And then there’s this; there is one of me and one of Bernie Maloy with at least 83 people volunteering. It takes you a lot less time to quickly fill out the form for each event than it does for me and Bernie to comb through the list to find what’s missing, contact everyone, make sure it’s entered, contact again if not. Some might wait until March, when we send out the PLEASE for year-end reporting. We appreciate hours entered, but when it’s all at once, it skews the data for YTD, making it hard to keep track in real time.
So, for every volunteer event you participate in, I am (begging, pleading with) asking you to be kind to a couple of old brains! It might seem trivial to you, but it’s a huge thing for the collective us.
If you want to check to see what hours you have entered already, go to VOLUNTEER HOURS RECORDED. This is a View Only file. In order to actually enter your hours, access our website at LRCTU.org. Find Submit Volunteer Hours Here! under our logo on the right-hand side of the page.
Looking forward to the picnic Thursday, July 24! There will be great burgers, potluck, and of course, having fun. Bring a chair, a spouse or friend, and come early if you want to fish; it is on the river, ya know!
Hope your summer is off to a great start!
Kim Emery
President
