In praise of GGBA office volunteers

By Ilana DeBare

Volunteering with Golden Gate Bird Alliance typically conjures up images of outdoor activities – people leading bird walks, introducing Eco-Ed students to nature, cleaning up beaches and marshes.

Well, what about bookkeeping? Updating membership records? Mailing out bird calendars?

GGBA has always had office volunteers. But over the past year – since budget cuts forced us to lay off our full-time office manager last spring – those volunteers have become increasingly central to our operations.

Here’s a look at three of our most dedicated office volunteers. They each have different motivations and different levels of interest or experience in birding. But they all treat their commitment as seriously as a paying job. We couldn’t get by without them!

Peter Crews

Peter is not a birder! But he was making a mid-life career transition out of carpentry into bookkeeping and needed some real-world experience to round out his newly-acquired A.A. degree in accounting.

“I found some online listings of nonprofits, including groups working with animals,” he said. “When I contacted them, GGBA and the Humane Society responded.”

Peter started a year ago, entering donations into our membership records database. When we had to lay off our office manager, he added the tasks of entering donations and membership payments into QuickBooks too. He works two days per week.

“It’s kind of grunt work, but realistically when I get a job, it will be as an assistant bookkeeper so this is good practice,” he said.

His goals? A job doing bookkeeping in retail – ideally for a lumberyard or construction firm so he could also tap into his carpentry background. And then some free time to… try birding.

“I have an informal queue of things I’d like to do once I get work and get settled,” he said. “The first is reestablish a social life. But birding is in there too.”

Susan Reneau

Susan started at GGBA last March after retiring from her paid career as a technology program manager at U.C. Berkeley.

Retirement meant more time to learn about the birds in her backyard, including enrolling in GGBA’ Beginning Birding class. It also meant a chance to give something back to the local community – thus her office role.

“GGBA is a very worthwhile cause,” Susan said. “I asked myself, What can I do to assist an organization that is doing something worthwhile?”

Susan puts in five to six hours each week — answering the phone, updating membership records, and helping with mailings. If you call the office on a Thursday, chances are you’ve spoken with her.

“I’m kind of people-oriented, so I enjoy hearing people’s stories that call in, and getting to know other people who are interested in birds,” she said. “I’ve found it’s useful to tell people who are calling that I’m a volunteer. Then they don’t get mad at me for not knowing everything.”

Linda Vallee

Unlike Peter and Susan, Linda’s ties to GGBA go way back – with over four years on the GGBA Board of Directors and two decades as part of our Friends of the Alameda Wildlife Reserve committee.

Linda has volunteered with a host of wildlife groups — banding raptors with Golden Gate Raptor Observatory, and caring for injured birds in the Lindsay Wildlife Museum hospital. But when she retired from her technology job at Fireman’s Fund last summer, she knew that GGBA needed extra help.

“Being on the board, I recognized the financial hardships that were occurring and the need for volunteers to help,” she said.

Linda has focused on trying to iron out the bugs in our new cloud-based member database. It’s a challenging process, even for someone with an I.T. background.  She typically works two half-days each week.

“For me, it’s been great because the transition to retirement can be a little traumatic,” Linda said. “I appreciate the ability to interface with people, keep my mind and I.T. skills up, and feel like I’m making a contribution. I want more variety than going birding every day.”

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Thanks to the continuing generosity of Golden Gate Bird Alliance members, we have stabilized our finances enough to restore an Office Manager position on a half-time basis in 2014. We are currently hiring for this position and are accepting applications through January 31. (Click here for the job description.)  

But even with a half-time Office Manager, we will continue to depend on dedicated volunteers like Peter, Susan and Linda! Thank you so much to all of our office volunteers. You may not be as visible as our field trip leaders or docents, but you keep GGBA running!

Want to volunteer for GGBA in the office or in the field? See the Volunteer page of our web site or email Noreen at nweeden@goldengatebirdalliance.org.