[Computerbank] tapping management and similar expertise wherever in Australia it is

[Bruce McCubbery]

The thing coming through is: we have people experienced in many fields who
aren't just in our capital cities who could help us in so many ways. Thanks
Don.

How can this availability of advice (etc) be properly factored in, how can
we best utilise it to develop as quickly as we can?

What mechanisms can be installed?

Bruce

On 3/11/01, Don Cameron [Mudgee NSW] wrote under "Cairns or any regional
node":

>the NSW Rural Fire Service... I was a Regional Officer and as such
>responsible for the coordination of about 18,000 volunteers throughout
>central NSW.  It was a desk jockey - policy formulation - crisis
>intervention -financial management - legalistic etc. type of role (though
>occasionally I did get to actually direct the activities of teams of
>volunteers during fires!). The person who ran the service was the
>Commissioner.
>There are few direct comparisons between an org like CB and a volunteer
>emergency service, however some comparisons that are obvious (and that you
>and others have touched on), are those of management resourcing,
>collaboration processes (for any org that is geographically diverse such as
>CB or the RFS), and the matter of properly allocating tasks and roles so
>that managers are not overburdened.
>The later is as much about people being able to 'let go and trust someone
>else to do the job', as it is about finding the right people - the two go
>hand in hand... and believe me I understand this only too well... It is very
>difficult to trust someone else to do a job properly when the consequences
>may be a fatality and finding myself up against a Coronial Inquest - However
>allocating tasks and responsibilities is just one of the responsibilities of
>management - something we all must do if we are to manage effectively.
>Please note that this is not a criticism - it's an observation of a
>phenomenon that exists in every volunteer org, usually in the early stages
>of development while people still have individual ownership in the project -
>it will change over time if for no other reason than due to workload. As an
>organisation grows it must diversify skills and tasks.