Bench Strength and the Mumbai Chapter

Many months have passed since I slotted 'Bench Strength' as the word of the month for this blog. For the uninitiated Bench Strength is a term most commonly used in team sport to describe players who do not form part of the starting team in a game, but will be useful during the course of the game. For instance, the 6th, 7th and 8th player in basketball, the 12th man in cricket etc etc. It also refers to budding players who can replace older players in a team.

So what is this term, used so often in team sport and now in corporate sector doing on a SPIC MACAY blog, that too a Mumbai chapter blog ? The author, yours truly, has had the audacity to make it word of the month and provide it a prominent place on this forum. This is not without reason, and has more to do with my intense fascination with the term, which I must admit to!

As I prepared to leave Mumbai earlier this year, I spent time thinking about the future of this chaper. Regular readers (somewhat optimistic here) will remember my post on sustaining chapters and Arvind's wonderful perspective on the same topic. My concerns became more pertinent, as Priyadarshan (PD), whom I considered the bulwark of our chapter, had decided to shun city life and moved on from Mumbai with noble intentions of making a difference to employment levels in some remote districts of Vidharbha region.As an aside, I personally rate PD's step as rather commendable and sometimes believe if his association with SPIC MACAY had the slightest of role in tilting him towards this decision over a corporate career.

I realised that with PD gone and me soon to go, the Mumbai chapter would be left with no 'seasoned' volunteers and activity levels would take a hit. However there was an inherent belief that PD and I had found some new volunteers who were warming uo to the movement. But they could at best be classified as a Bench at that stage - people with immense capabilities and potential but yet to test waters. However now there was no option to let the bench take over the show from us old fogies. The time had come to test the chapter's Bench Strength or the lack of it. Well the Virasat series happened, not without glitches, but happened nevertheless and entirely by this so called bench taking center stage.

Little had we realised that by PD himself leading a group of students to the convention at Kohima, and by keeping them in the loop while planning and executing FEST we were successful in creating a strong bench of volunteers. This bench strength is now running the show in Mumbai. As I write they prepare to conduct a FEST series trying to iron out all glitches they encountered during the Virasat. For they are no longer the Bench but the bulwark of the chapter.

Though I hope they are on their way to adding even more Bench Strength to the chapter

Sustaining Chapters -Creating Volunteer Value

As I try (note the word) to distance myself from the day to day workings of the Bombay chapter, I spend some more time thinking about how the chapter can be taken forward and developed! Also helps me add some colour to the chapter like linkages with the mozilla foundation and enlightening them with download days of firefox - is this what someone meant by saying we should make the Bombay chapter more lively - maybe!.

This was something i never thought about in NSIT (my engineering college), which was my first association with SPIC MACAY. There, I assumed, being a college an organic growth was imminent and it was something that happened on its own. Consequently, I failed miserably at in MICA, due to never thinking about it then.

Experience is the best teacher and I learned that if I need to play an active role in Bombay (something i resisted till I felt there were more committed peopleplaying an active role!)

Priyank soon left and SPIC MACAY fest 2008 approaching and no one who would take the initiative to organise it, I decided this was the time to try and explore the old wine, but in a completely new bottle. So may be how I should savour it should also change.

I knew that there were a couple of people priyank had initiated into the scheme of things, and they could just be told what to do and they would achieve the desired effect of 15 concerts - in say 10 schools/ colleges. But could the same 15 concerts be achieved with a greater impact. I am not really talking about an impact in the city / media etc - but as priyadashan puts it rather nicely - the concerts adding more value to us - the spicmacayites, the volunteers!

A google group to which i kept posting almost felt like I was writing to the wall, making proclamations of revived saturday meetings, which at times evoked some valid cynicism and mockery,organising dinner parties to which practically no one would turn up!Many times I felt that I was trying to weave into a community wide project, a set of simple tasks which i could achieve by simple coordination skills - which SPIC MACAY had taught me in good measure by now!

However, the wall i felt I was talking to soon began to crumble as priyadarshan instantly bought into my ideas about how we work being equally ( I am tempted to say 'more') important than what we achieve!


It is impossible to quantify what we achieved by all this but if I was to put it vaguely, here is a small list -

1.We revived a feel good factor that fans and supporters of spic macay in mumbai had not felt in a long time!

2. We revived a certain volunteer curiosity > Anyone who came forward with an intention to volunteer at any scale, however big or small did not go back disappointed!

3. This interest did not stay limited to the fest series. but a similar exercise for planning and implementing the convention travel by priyadarshan - has had a certain impact on a few more people!

4. As Saturday meetings was not the most viable of things, google groups, documents and things like this blog attempt to replicate the saturday like effects with a greater regularity and with greater width

The key take home from all this being that if we begin with focussing on creating volunteer value, the likelihood of a chapter sustaining will be far greater!

And volunteer value will not come from the end product but the process, the means to achieve the end!

Let me end with a very simple and actionable example that highlights my point- by commenting on this post and hence engaging in an online discussion around it - you will add value to this volunteer's post - and make him count!

cheers
Harsh