Those days are over.
You can decry how "the younger generation isn't as tough as we were" and all that (now that I'm in my 40s, I now realize that's a biological thing, every generation feels theirs was the last generation who was tough, respected their elders and had a work ethic), but the bottom line is if you want anyone under the age of, say, 30 or so, you're going to have to thank them. A lot.
File it under the, 'it is what it is' heading, but selfless service is pretty much limited to the military anymore. If you're not letting people know they're valued, there eventually won't be but a few die-hards left and that won't be enough to keep the wheels turning.
Everyone needs to break themsevles of the 'you should consider yourself lucky we allow you to show up and do the dirtiest jobs for free' mindset.
Seriously, those days are over.

If I may...while I haven't had the chance to volunteer in a working railroad shop, I''ve done a lot of other volunteer gigs over the years.

Thanks are never out of place. Even better than "thank you" is specific gratitude: I'm glad you could make it in today in spite of the weather," or "I had no idea how we were going to do that, so it's a good thing you did."

If your position requires you to correct those doing a poor job, make it part of your job description to compliment those doing a good one.

If museum finances permit, consider giving free membership to those who give a certain number of hours. I left a local gun club because I paid dues for two or three years and seldom, if ever, got to shoot--I was automatically the range officer and no one else would offer to take over. The current range officer gets free membership and someone to spell him every night for long enough that he can shoot.

Beware of mission creep for volunteers. At the last place, I was supposed to run the cash register for two hours. Um, wait, show up half an hour early to open. Um, can you stay another hour?...What do you mean, you've been here for four hours and need to pick your husband up from work? (They understood that I had to be elsewhere at 3 PM and could not be late; they just felt like pushing the issue.)

Asking the impossible is a sure way to lose people. If more than one person can issue orders, make sure they compare notes. I once had two bosses assign ongoing tasks that were mutually exclusive, and neither would budge an inch.

Finally, we all know that gas costs a lot. If there's any way to promote some gas gift cards for some of your best volunteers, it would be a really nice touch and might mean you'd see more of those at a distance.

Lee,

I have to agree with you-to a great degree, but not completely.

I find the generation you speak of to be very different than the one I grew up in. Not every person, but I've seen enough to be concerned.

First, the days of graduating high school, choosing your path and following it to a decent paying job appear to be over. Many folks living in their parents basements today, which I'm sure you are aware of. It is hard to develop a work ethic if you don't work.

These guys and gals seem to exist in an isolated fashion that would have been impossible (and intolerable) back in my day. Today, it starts with the computer, moves on to the gaming console and then to the cell phone. They can communicate with everyone they know-and never leave the house !!! These days, I don't see kids outside riding their bikes, playing sports...and so on. I see this as an insidious cycle that only spirals downward. Hard to build a real network if you don't deal with people face to face on a regular basis.

What I am trying to say is this: If one is led to believe over their entire short life that 'it is all about me'-who/what is going to educate these people that it isn't ? The railroad, in all its different forms, was-is-and probably always will be a 'harsh environment.' Me first isn't going to cut it.

Dave

You just spelled out one of the reasons I left the mental health field... So many young people (and it is beyond troubling; it's downright disgusting) are overly self-entitled and act like they own the world. My argument is that while technology is a factor, most of those quirks are perpetuated in the cesspool known as present-day high school.

Young people are different now, there's no question on that, but that's a constant. Our own generations are different from every other one that came before. I had uncles who fought in WW2 (now called, "The Greatest Generation") who told me that when they were young, they were told by the older people that their generation was no good, either.
I'm reminded of a great quote I often throw out on the subject:

But either way, no matter what you think about young people, you're going to have to handle things their way if you want volunteers in the future.
You're all going to have to get used to that right now.
It's going to be quite funny to see what the future of museums is going to be when the older folks right now all die off and museums still have the old-school, "beg me to work for free" attitude, when that just ain't gonna cut it in the future...

To paraphrase JFK, "Ask not what young volunteers can do for your museum; ask what your museum can do for its young volunteers." It is our job as elders to capitalize on the ingenuity, intelligence, and innovation of our young volunteers, and show them the satisfaction they can get from well done restorations and happy visitors. In the process, we can hopefully set good examples, smooth their rough edges, and help them along in a process called maturity.

"Me first" won't cut it on the railroad. Running a train (much less a railroad) requires team effort. Every person has to know their job and do it correctly. Train crew and station staff both have to do their parts to dispatch a train on time. When I knew that we weren't going to depart on time due to station work, I'd let the fireman know and give them an estimate of the delay so that they wouldn't be popping off unnecessarily.

I do see people trying to raise their kids away from the influences of the internet and cell phones. It's not easy, but it can be done.

I remember one of our engineers. He was a great guy to work with, but if we were switching and any one of us was doing it in an order that didn't seem to be the most expedient or logical, he always wanted to know why it couldn't be done the other way. Some of our conductors just could not stand being questioned-like he was challenging their decisions. I would simply say that there was a reason and that I'd be glad to explain it later-once we were done working. He was an EE and that had a lot to do with his way of thinking. Once I explained why we couldn't just couple car A to car B directly, there was no confusion.

I do see that with youngsters, it is important to capture their attention early on and encourage it. TVRM had a longstanding practice of allowing volunteers to sponsor teens who showed an interest in railroading. A couple of the machinists there started out as teens and are still there (as paid employees) years later. With the right interaction, that kid looking at your steam locomotive in awe may someday be the engineer at the throttle or the conductor working the train. That's how it was for me.

Another problem not yet spoken of-those who are interested in the railroad can easily hire on in a craft position-and get paid for their work. There is a wave of retirements underway.

Dave

And concurrently there are fewer people left on the Commercial Railroads and Commuter Rail Agencies who understand older technology relay-logic locomotive control systems, and some companies that still have older power are trying to improve their training in that area. It creates a rather unusual opportunity to learn about older equipment and systems while getting paid for it.

Could the people they train be tomorrow's volunteers? Maybe. If they are not greeted with a heaping serving of sour grapes about modern railroading and modern railroaders when they inquire at the museum.

PC

One other piece of advice I can relate:

You can have a thriving, supportive environment for volunteers to come and help you. You can throw all the benefits you want at them. You can bend over backwards to accommodate them.

But it only takes ONE superior--one board member, one supervisor, one engineer, one dispatcher, one "guy who's been here for ages and knows everything"--to badmouth them, to be a bully, to be contentious, even to just plainly exhibit a "we don't like you" attitude, and that volunteer is gone. For good. Nothing short of sacking the responsible party or a complete change of personnel will get them back.

And like cars or movies or retail experiences, if someone has a good experience, he'll mention it to one or two folks at best; if he has a bad experience, he'll tell five times as many people to avoid them/it.

I've seen it. I've heard the aftermath. I've had to pick up an abandoned project.

And in one (non-rail) instance, I was the one that bolted. I said forthright "Let me get this straight: You're asking me to pay an annual membership, lend my technical expertise, attend meetings, put in several 12-hour days, coordinate with the local businesses on your behalf..... and all I get out of this is a couple meals and motel crash space, while meanwhile someone's misusing something I said to someone else as an excuse to have me thrown off staff because he doesn't like me? . . . . . Have a nice life, bozos. I HAVE a life." They supposedly threw the troublemaker off of staff, but I'm ignoring the olive branches the rest of them, many good friends by now, have extended.

[quote="NH0401"]Another problem not yet spoken of-those who are interested in the railroad can easily hire on in a craft position-[b]and get paid for their work.[/b][/quote]

Whether this is a problem or not depends on the nature of the organization, or component parts thereof. If you are a tourist railroad, whether on a commercial basis or simply dependent upon volunteer enthusiasm for "keepin' them trains a-rollin'," a diminishing supply pool of people whose primary object is to work on trains may certainly constitute a crisis in the making. As you say, such individuals now have a better chance than in a long while to simply hire on with the big railroad, and get as much of that atmosphere as they could possibly want.

If your organization's object is "railway preservation," an operational train may or may not be a component of your mission. However, education, interpretation, curation, obtaining the various skills attendant to restoration work, charitable fundraising of a serious nature, etc. will undoubtedly be. In such cases, a diminished supply of "those who are interested in the railroad" and whose interest would be satiated by full-time modern railroad employment may not be so much of a problem.

I'd go a little further. If the economics (or lack thereof) of your railroad operation are dependent upon volunteer labor, your volunteers are effectively subsidizing your visitors' ticket costs. Your business is thus already on life support, and a reduction in the number of such volunteers only hastens the inevitable. One way to address this is to change nothing, and hope and pray for more volunteers in the future. Another way might be to ensure that your business (tourist railroad, museum, whatever) is conceived and structured for success in evolving real-world conditions. Real railroads pay their employees; real museums (as a general matter) may well have volunteer docents, "friends of", and so forth, but compete on a serious level for charitable dollars and professional skills. Clubs that exist for the pleasure of their own members - well, they come and go.

I guess the question needs to be asked:
Is there really a crisis in volunteers over among RR museums and operation at this point?
Generally, is this even an issue right now?
I looked into an operation* once to vounteer and was told, verbatim, "Don't expect to get to run trains or handle operating equipment... EVER. We have the staff for that already." I know it wasn't something against me (I have good social and communication skills and used to be an Army officer, and I'm in halfway decent shape). I know two other guys who got the exact same reaction when they looked into it. They did what I did, thanked them for their time and didn't even look in the rear view mirror as I drove off, never to return for any reason.

*Please, no PMs asking me which one.

No, we don't have a volunteer crisis, we have a museum management crisis that is rampant in railway preservation. The bad economy is finally exposing poorly run museums. Some will fold, some will die off. Only well run museums will survive in the long run. Being a "well run" museum is more than just financials, it includes a healthy volunteer environment.

A "volunteer problem" is just a symptom of larger issues under the surface.

Dear Mr. Wolven

I have volunteered for an all volunteer organization, worked on an all paid staff and one where there is a mix. I have also interacted with some other organizations. When dealing with people who are giving up their time and putting in effort to support an organization no matter how much they are able to give it is a sacrifice on the volunteer’s part. We often time look at the big donor who is often a retiree who has time unlike the family member who has other obligations if they are a good family member and so time may not be always available. It is important for the management of any organization whether volunteer or paid to see and show appreciation for sacrifices that are made.

It has been documented earlier that an unresponsive management or even issues with another volunteer can cause issues the thing that I often find is the real issue is the lack of resolution of the problem. When people create a poisonous environment for others either by not appreciating their efforts of by even being openly disrespectful and hostile to that person it is important for management to step in and work on resolving the situation.

There is one organization that I know of where certain members have formed a click that hates people who do not agree with them. I have seen other groups that had members that did not agree with one another on several issues but could come together to work on a common goal because they had a respect for each one as an individual. It is important to convince people that they have a common goal in this project and not differences.

It is also important to realize that everyone from the best of members and paid staff to the worst of members or paid staff represent the group no matter how active or inactive they are. This is particularly true for those who are not involved or know the internal politics. Working to improve the moral for only one member of the entire group or to show appreciation of the entire group is an important task. The happier everyone is the more that is likely to get done. And it is important to remember that even if one family member volunteers the whole family is making a sacrifice.

For everyone who is dedicated to a cause is passionate about it they have an emotional attachment to the project and what they get out of what they can give to a project in filling ones needs is important. It is also important that if there is a problem that we do not resort to the level of name calling or belittling one another but try to address the issues alone without expanding the issues to a personal level.

When I was president of the Southwest Chapter of the R&LHS, it would frustrate me when someone who would say this is not right or this will not work but never had a solution or even the willingness to work on the problem. When people came to me with problems they either had a solution or were willing to work on and solve it made my role easier. I want to encourage you to consider the issue of volunteer appreciation and find a way to make everyone understand the issue and possible ways to solve it. Then take the initiative to approach your management about the issue and possible solutions. Remember they may not use any of them but working together in a positive way may better the group as a whole. I hope these thoughts help.

Sincerely,
Robby Peartree