What could be more fun than riding around all day enjoying two great hobbies? In my book, there isn’t much better. I have only worked one event, the Tierra Bella. My work is technical support and people don't call just to thank us for being there, they usually have a problem and it is my
job to make everything OK. Everyone I talked to on the Tierra Bella ride, fellow HAMS, the members of the bicycle club and especially the riders that I stopped to help, all made a point of how happy they were that we were volunteering our time. Wow what a change!!
As far as organization I understand the fears. I am familiar with organizations that were too tightly structured or just had bad operating practices and I certainly don't want MARC to end up as either one of those. I've also worked in organizations that were a bunch of contributors with similar interests (not always the same interests) that had fun working as a team. To use a
basketball team as an analogy, each member knew who had the ball for each situation and there were enough situations where everyone got there chance with the ball and had their opportunities to shoot. Everyone was there to support the whole team. As such, it is helpful to know whom the head coach is that calls the plays, who the point guards are, etc. I think in a team such as MARC a lot of these
responsibilities can be shared or rotated so that everyone who wants to participate can get a chance to contribute to the team in different ways. Others may not want to rotate and that should be OK too.
I think this is a great group of folks that I enjoy being around and learning from, and hopefully, I'm making a contribution as well.
Larry McDonald
K6ACE
