I Was Never Here

My buddy Ron is the executive secretary for the volunteer organization I belong to made up of scrappy folks with disabilities trying to change the system, the huge system which is primarily working against folks with disabilities living as independent and positive as possible. Ron actually called me last week to inform me that major changes are about ready to happen at this organization the most radical being the Executive Director was going to resign at the upcoming meeting as well as secretary/girl Friday of the organization has been let go (and I never really did find out why which is probably just as well I'm sure it'll eventually seep out our rise to the surface). Either way these two changes are going to have a significant impact on what happens to this organization in the next couple months.

It's really cute how I'm really hosting this post in anonymity like anything I write people are going to read. Still just to be on the safe side not going to identify this volunteer, cross disability, private nonprofit agency that loves to practice direct confrontation, nonviolent advocacy for the change of punitive, discriminatory and draconian programs and systems against folks with disabilities. We buried our long time leader a couple months ago is been quite a bit of a transition. The director is actually been over a different part of the organization, the one who resigned, has done really well in trying to take the lead but it's not going to work. We have some really interesting people now who I believe are strong and naïve to the point that they don't know how to be subservient and subjective and they have lived with disability in anger long enough to want to make a difference in their lives and other folks with disabilities. We have a chance, those of us who have worked in the nonviolent direct action field over the years the train up a “new Legion” and bring about a chance to enlarge our ranks with new blood that will guarantee the salvation of the group and increased benefits to people with disabilities of all kinds in the months and years to come. I don't know if we can pull this off. This is going to have to really use people who aren't used to working in that system to put on the yoke and help pull the plow. In all honesty I must confess I think I am one of those people who need to yoke up. I don't want to, but I think I may have to even if it's just for little while.

As an organization and a group we are going to have to hammer out what it is that we do. Are we a service provider, which this group has gotten itself into over the last couple of years in a big way, or are we a direct confrontational advocacy group seeking to bring change both politically and in the service provision field to folks with disabilities. How we answer those questions is really how were going to go/grow if that's what we choose to do I personally think we need to get out of the money making, or trying to be a money making group. I think will lose credibility as the direct action organization in town. It's nice to have the money but I think we lose a lot of leverage and muscle.

I've learned not to volunteer in these kind of organizations over the years. I'm really holding myself back from volunteering now is one I don't want to make a major mistake this late in my life and two I don't want to be burned again as in days gone by. Nobody truly appreciates the volunteer. Stay tuned out keep you informed on how the transition goes…