Have you ever noticed that no matter what type of organization you are involved with there seems to be politics involved? This can become bothersome especially if you are new to an organization and are not aware of prior history and relationships. My husband and I moved to our present home about six years ago. At the time we moved we joined the local Catholic Church community. We did not volunteer for any committees immediately because we were burned out from being involved with our last parish. In the previous parish we had been on the fundraising committee, the environment committee the parish council and we volunteered to serve during services. Because we were so involved we found that it was hard to just go and worship. We fielded many calls from fellow parishioners that had complaints about various aspects of the fundraiser or about the way the environment looked. It was disheartening because the people that complained the loudest and most often were rarely involved in the work that goes along with keeping a parish running.
After we belonged to our new parish for about seven months there was a time and talent survey that was sent out. My husband and I decided that we needed to be involved in some way in supporting this parish so we signed up to serve at mass. About this same time there was a notice in the parish bulletin that there was going to be a new church sound system and anyone interested in being involved in researching this should come to a meeting. My husband was involved with the church sound system in the last church we belonged to. He was involved because he happened to be on the parish council at the time that it was decided that a new church sound system was needed. He found out many things about the different speaker systems as well as how microphones work together. There were many headaches with setting this up and the usual complaints from various church members, but the en result was a great sound system. My husband thought he would join the meeting and share what he had learned in the last experience.
When he went to the meeting he sat backed and listened for a while. Many of the same complaints that came up in the former church were being expressed. One of the major complaints was that the present sound system was not conducive to those people wearing hearing aides. My husband spoke up with the information that he had learned during the last project. The priest was so excited to know that there was someone that was familiar with church sound systems that he put my husband in charge of the committee. I had to laugh that we were going to ease into volunteering and within a year my husband was the head of a committee.
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