Cat Herd

Here is a suggested approach.

No reasonable person expects that individual cats will do what they're told, let alone that groups of them will. Recognising that volunteers are neither employees nor active-duty soldiers to whom orders can be given may help:

• maintain motivation while volunteers are engaged, and
• smooth transition when they cease being engaged.

What needs doing:

• Keep track of who has volunteered for what e.g. by maintaining Things that need doing on a regular basis to keep the place healthy and for what terms. It will usually make sense for all volunteer terms to expire simultaneously so a plenum in March/April can be used to reappoint or flag the need to find new volunteers.
• If a volunteer is not keeping their commitment, have a Private Talk with them to explore the problem. If they need support and it can be found, do so. Failing that, accept their resignation and mark the post vacant.
• Recruit volunteers to fill vacant posts:
  • Announcements on the mailing list / blog / social media and at plena are appropriate. It may also be appropriate to include polite comment about the person who has resigned if they wish.
  • Privately approaching potential candidates individually and sounding them out is also usually appropriate but bear in mind that you're looking for a volunteer who wants to do the thing, not someone to cajole into doing it.
  • Arrowing is NEVER appropriate. Have you tried to persuade a cat to do thing that they did not want to do? Don't do that.
  • Similarly, publicly naming a potential candidate is not OK; allow them to volunteer before naming them in public rather than risk shaming them. Discussing potential volunteers privately is fine; discussion in plenum may be OK (use discretion!), but potential candidates named this way should not be minuted.
• Coordinate the process to seek confirmation of additional terms a month or two prior to the end of the volunteer's current term.

What this is not:

• "Boss" of HackerspaceSG (we don't have one).
• Responsible for volunteers to do what they've volunteered to do (only to take reasonable steps that there is always an appointed, engaged volunteer (or an announced vacancy) in each defined role).