Committee Commitment
/So when you join a roller derby league, it is required that you participate in one of the many roller derby committees. These committees range in scope from governance of the league, to bout production, to merchandise, to grievance, etc. etc. By participating, every skater takes an active role in the development of the league, and the league becomes truly skater owned and operated. So this is awesome. What is not awesome, is spending a huge amount of your free time and skipping practices in order to do said work on the committee. It takes a shit-ton of work to make a roller derby league run like a well-oiled machine. And considering that the skaters on the league vary from full-time students holding down part-time jobs to working mothers with multiple jobs, it's a wonder any of us have time to play derby in general. So when you add in all the practicing, running and skating in bouts, making appearances at local events ... it starts to add up.
And I'm pretty bad at time management (apparently). I want to do everything all of the time. I don't want to miss out on anything. I want to be able to do all the things I enjoy doing, and help out wherever I can. Is that so unreasonable? Unfortunately, this has been WAY easier said than done and now I'm struggling. Luckily we have a wave of super awesome fresh meat coming in, and their enthusiasm can help replenish the vets and the not-so-vets (like me - not even been in derby a year yet) from feeling so overwhelmed and burnt out.
I hope so anyway. Woof.