Volunteers, where are we going? What's our Role? Its larger than you may think.

 Wow!  You gotta get below and gaze around the Saloon. It hasn't looked this good in months.  Lance Halderman, Ken Fonville, Tony, Marchesani, and Walter Barton rolled up sleeves Saturday morning and went to work.  It shows. They met a standard that's always been there, but hard to maintain with once-a-week crew. 

There's an impetus for this.  I've been informed that there will be visitors coming aboard, sometime soon, ostensibly to tour the ship. The office requested of me that we do what we can to get her back into 'Bristol Fashion" (my words, but you get the idea).  Don't really care who the visitors might be so much, as the plain fact that the schooner is having visitors who've likely not seen her before, let-alone coming aboard for a close up look.  

Think on it.. What's the basic root- problem this Schooner faces, huh? I think it's because she's invisible. In my conversations with people, lots of people I don't already know-those are the ones I seek out. They don't know she exists. She's invisible,, a secret, to way-too many people around here.  Of those that do know she exists, it seems their typical perspective, is that , "well, she's there but she doesn't do anything."  Not totally true, but you can see their point.  You can't have an opinion about something of which you know nothing. You can't be expected to support something whose story you've never heard. 

The point is fixable, and I've got hopes that we may be on that track soon.. just a gut thing.  Why's my gut saying that?  Well, in addition to the "does nothing" perspective that comes from people, they tend to see an additional aspect if you tease it out.. The one's who know Spirit of South Carolina, or know of her, have often offered their own bit of , "if only .." ,  "y'know, she could be.."  or even, "so, when's she gonna be back?" 

Every week for the past year, I've been meeting up with a group of mostly local people for drinks and a snack or too, mostly socializing... They also have friends from out of town visiting who are invited to join the "salon." Conversation goes everywhere, where's everybody been, what's going on in the city? who's doing what to help with; lots of  conversation about ideas and events.  

Stay with me, I'll get to my point,  I promise.

My entry into this group came from a person I once invited aboard for a deck tour.  I told the story of Spirit of South Carolina, and we conversed around concepts of the schooners capabilities, and potential; It lasted a couple of hours.  This person pretty much directed me to join this social gathering.  In that group, in a normal conversation, I was inevitably asked a  question-something like, "what do you do?"  I get to tell 'em my story; only a sentence or two about  my "Pre-Charleston" life. My objective was to tell the story about Spirit of South Carolina. It starts with a 30-second "elevator speech- What the ship is, what she was built to do, what she's done, and how people who come aboard are changed. 

I swear-to-god it always happens, their eyes get big, or they squint a little, as if thinking, "really? you can do that?."  About 70% want to know more. Of those, about 50%  accept with enthusiasm my offer to come aboard for a tour.  Most of them actually show up on the dock. But, I see almost all of them again in following weeks in our social, as well as new folks joining in, and I always find opportunity to converse with the newcomers. 

See where I'm going with this?  

As Volunteers, we may not have eyes on what, exactly, is happening at the management level of our Schooner, but we do have a significant role to play beyond the tasks of maintenance. Because of our reach into the community, even out of town, even out of state, we have capability to tell her story. No one else has the same credibility for that role.  We are recognized for taking part in something much bigger than ourselves.  Our cause is our Ship and advancing her mission.  We have capability and opportunities to tell it to our neighbors, reach into our kids schools, our congregations, our community groups, workplaces,, and tell her story. Make her visible. 

Our motivation isn't quite the same as a usual paid mariner who tends to bounce from ship to ship. It's bigger. We have more at stake.  If you haven't yet so reflected, I recommend it. There's really an exhilaration in being able to explain why you're excited to spend time on board,, why you enjoy company of your shipmates, what differentiates your experience from that of other modern yacht sailors - even if you've not yet gone to sea in our Schooner, but you aspire to it.  Literature describes it.   Two paragraph's laminated and posted in the saloon on the galley cupboard describe it. You can peruse at the link here.

The Tall Ship Experience

More about how we all can work together on our "story", later. but soon.

PS:

We're growing a pretty good readership on his Blog. That's reassuring, but what would make it better, would be to hear from you. 

Please comment on what you'd like to see more of , less of, questions, or observations.  There's a link at the bottom.  We're public, on purpose. If you've someone in mind who might be interested in what's being said here, you're welcome to hit that little envelope  icon below and send em' a copy.