Today marked the first day of my volunteering for the Richmond Art Gallery. Thanks to a tweet made by Nicholas Pavlich (@NicholasPR on Twitter), I found out that he was actually the fundraising chair for the Richmond Art Gallery. I expressed interest in volunteering for RAG, and things progressed from there.
Inside the Richmond Art Gallery
About the Richmond Art Gallery
The RAG is a small (in relative size to the Vancouver Art Gallery) public art gallery located in the Cultural Centre/Brighouse library. While owned by the City of Richmond, the Richmond Art Gallery is actually operated by the Richmond Art Gallery Association, a non profit society formed to support the public, non-profit gallery.
Confusing, right? Yeah, I’m still trying to wrap my head around it. Ok, so the art gallery’s owned by the City of Richmond… And operated by the RAG association, which is run by a board of directors. These directors are in turn, in charge of different committees. Nicholas is the Fundraising Chair. I’m volunteering on the fundraising committee. That makes it a little easier to swallow.
Now, the fundraising committee is responsible for throwing events and coming up with fundraising ideas. Today was the second meeting of this committee, so I didn’t miss much. At the first one, they discussed fundraising targets and ideas, but nothing was hammered down. Today, we were able to hone in on one idea, though a couple other ideas were also tossed around.
I’m actually pretty excited to volunteer on this committee. It’ll give me invaluable experience with event planning, media relations, attaining corporate sponsorship, promotion of the actual event, community relations, etc…. And when the whole thing gets pulled off, I’ll know I had a hand in making it happen.
It’s been a while since I’ve felt great about doing something bigger than myself and seeing it all come together. From January to May 12th, I volunteered on Linda Reid’s campaign for the election, doing things like email blasts, website updates, facebook & twitter account set up, etc. It was all great fun, and I volunteered on her behalf as a scrutineer for election day, but I didn’t really get the full impact of her winning her riding on election night. There was a party at her campaign office, and also the opportunity to head down to the new Vancouver convention centre for the after party, but by 9pm, I was so drained from working 14 hours earlier as a scrutineer, that I didn’t get to fully enjoy it.*
Being able to see your hard work come together in a tangible way, whether it’s pulling off the perfect event, or reaching that fundraising goal of $500 for that marathon (or even just completing the marathon!) is extremely rewarding. Working with people who bring a vast array of experiences to the table and just being a part of that is a treat in and of itself. I’m extremely lucky to have found Nick on Twitter, and I have to thank him profusely for giving me this opportunity to volunteer for the Richmond Art Gallery.
Thanks, Nick!
*Linda Reid did hold a thank you dinner for all volunteers at Queen’s Cafe in Richmond a couple weeks ago to acknowledge our help, and also gave us personal signed cards! Not that I really needed either – it was a pleasure to be a part of her team!
