Volunteers for PAFOA work: Register here please

[danp]

The time has come for PAFOA to start seriously looking into distributing it's workload among dedicated volunteers. Quite simply the amount of work that needs to be done to keep PAFOA on the cutting edge of protecting Pennsylvania gun owners has far surpassed the ability of myself and the other "unofficial" volunteers to keep up with. With that said I am looking to compile a list of people who can help us out when needed.

Please only volunteer yourself if you feel you can truly make a commitment. In my experience, while all people have good intentions and want to help, not everyone actually can. If you are a very busy person and can't really dedicate much free time to helping us do something, let us know. Unfortunately the only thing worse than no volunteers is volunteers who bite off more than they can chew in how much work they can take on and how fast they can perform it. I myself am guilty of this and have learned my lesson over the past few years. I would rather a volunteer say they can do 5 hours a week and do 10 than say 10 and do 5.

If you are replying, please reply with the following information:

Occupation:
College Degree:
Additional Skills:
Guaranteed Hours/Week Available:
Able to turn around work on short notice?:

Specific skills we are looking for:

Accounting
Requirements: Professional Credentials (CPA, etc)
Non-Profit Experience: Not required, but a major plus
Firearms Knowledge: Not Required
Paid: Yes
Work Fast/On Short Notice: No
Description: With PAFOA's finances growing, we are looking for an accountant who can help us get everything organized in a top notch manner. I've have been and continue to take care of this personally since the organization was founded, but it's time to take this to the next level. We'd love to throw this business to a fellow gun owner.

Public Relations/Marketing
Requirements: Experience in the field at a professional level
Non-Profit Experience: Not Required
Firearms Knowledge: Must have an above-average understanding of firearms law and politics
Paid: Possibly on a per-project basis
Work Fast/On Short Notice: Yes
Description: PAFOA needs to be able to tackle public relations issues related to firearm ownership in Pennsylvania in a timely manner. In the short term this requires that PAFOA begin publicly addressing and countering pro-gun-control arguments in the public discourse through editorials in newspapers around the Commonwealth. In the long term this may grow into general public relations campaigns focused on educating citizens, law enforcement, and politicians about firearm-related issues.

Lawyers
Requirements: Be a Lawyer!
Non-Profit Experience: Not Required, but helpful
Firearms Knowledge: Not necessarily required, but immensely preferred
Paid: Not unless retained for specific projects
Work Fast/On Short Notice: Moderate
Description: PAFOA has many lawyers it works with some of whom are officially retained. What we are always looking for are lawyers who can dedicate time now and then to give things a first look and bounce ideas around. Depending on specific cases such lawyers may be paid and retained for services. Our ultimate goal is to have working relationships with a network of lawyers from all areas of the Commonwealth. This provides us the ability to get different perspectives on issues and possibly refer PAFOA members to when they are in need of counsel. Lawyers with non-profit knowledge may be able to help us with organization-related issues and lawyers with extensive knowledge of federal and state firearms laws will always be in demand.

Graphic Design
Requirements: Anyone with skills
Non-Profit Experience: Not Required
Firearms Knowledge: Not Required
Paid: Possibly on a per-project basis
Work Fast/On Short Notice: Moderate
Description: As PAFOA grows it will take on many projects requiring the skill of talented graphic designers. In the long term such designers will be responsible for maintaining and modifying the PAFOA "brand" and in the short term mostly what is needed are print designers who can handle the creation of professional looking flyers, brochures and informational pamphlets relating to the ownership of firearms in Pennsylvania.

Wiki Administrators
Requirements: Experience administering and maintaining a Wiki
Non-Profit Experience: Not Required
Firearms Knowledge: Not Required, but the more you know the better
Paid: No
Work Fast/On Short Notice: No
Description: PAFOA is considering creating a Wiki to act as a clearing house for information between the discussion forum and the main website. The general idea is that as the forum will produce raw data contributed by anyone which will be distilled into slightly more structured data on the wiki and ultimately refined to perfection for posting on the main website. We are looking for people with experience as contributors or administrators of other Wiki's such as Wikipedia. We are specifically looking for people who understand the underlying core of MediaWiki such as how to properly structure pages, categories, etc. and understand the more complex functionality of WikiMedia such as templates and so on.

Bloggers
Requirements: Experience with blogging
Non-Profit Experience: Not Required
Firearms Knowledge: Above average understanding of firearms topics, not limited to law & politics, but preferred.
Paid: No
Work Fast/On Short Notice: Yes
Description: PAFOA is also considering creating a blog to supplement the content of the forum. Our goal is to compile a small team of knowledgeable individuals who can provide insightful commentary on topics of interest to gun owners in Pennsylvania.

Copywriters
Requirements: Experience with copywriting
Non-Profit Experience: Not Required
Firearms Knowledge: Enough to be able to take information and write professional content without accidentally changing the underlying facts/meaning.
Paid: Possibly in time
Work Fast/On Short Notice: No
Description: PAFOA has a lot of raw, unedited content that needs to be taken from the forum (and in the possible future, the wiki) and formatted for public consumption. Mostly this content is to provide information about the laws related to owning, purchasing, transferring, carrying, and shooting firearms in Pennsylvania.

[danp]

Bump and Reserve first reply.

[RocketFoot]

I'll be glad to help out where I can, especially in the graphic design area. I can also help with a Wiki and Blogging. I manage a large Ford Wiki on one site and a smaller Mack Truck Wiki on another site. I also do some blogging on both of my sites. I can also help with behind the scenes forum maintenance if needed. I have extensive knowledge of VB and IPB Admin Controls and FTP uploading (I am not familiar with Linux systems, though)

Occupation: Heavy Duty Parts Manager/Operations Manager
College Degree: 2 years Mechanical Drafting, 2 years Business Management (no degree)
Additional Skills: Advertising, Promoting, Graphic Arts (PhotoShop), Photography, Video Editing, Web Development (HTML, IPB, VB), Forum, Wiki & Blog Management, FTP, HTML, some php & mySQL coding. I also have a strong physical knowledge of guns and I am learning about gun law daily!
Guaranteed Hours/Week Available: 5 hours per week (10 possible if needed)
Able to turn around work on short notice?: Yes (Although it depends on the type of project)

Project References: www.bigmacktrucks.com, www.taurusclub.com, My Gallery

I'd consider it a great honor to use any of my skills to help this organization grow and in the process, help defend our 2nd Amendment rights! Let me know if there is anything I can do to help out.

[icp4life162005]

If I can help in anyway just let me know. Even if its just helping out with basic stuff.

[phillyshooter]

I'd be willing to help out with a Wiki.

Occupation: Computer Network Systems Specialist for Laboratory Corporation of America
College Degree: Associates Degree from CHI Institute for Computer Networking/Engineering
Additional Skills: All around computer nerd.
Guaranteed Hours/Week Available: 10 - 15
Able to turn around work on short notice? Yes, depending on what the work entails.

[Damage control]

I like pie......


Occupation: Class A Toolmaker/Cad-CAM designer/ Computerized numeric control (CNC) Programmer.
College Degree: Certified in Mastercam (Prism engineering) and Solidworks (Scranton U)
Additional Skills: Management experience.
Guaranteed Hours/Week Available: no less than 10
Able to turn around work on short notice?: In my field thats like every day.

DC

[normanvin]

I would love to help out but I do not do work in any of the fields listed. I would be more than glad to help out where and when I can..

Occupation: Facilities manager
College Degree:Some machine design courses
Additional Skills:Machine design. tool design, machine builder, tool builder, electrical, plumbing, hydraulics, pneumatics
Guaranteed Hours/Week Available:
Able to turn around work on short notice?:

[danp]

Guys, if you can please re-read the original post and respond with the information I asked for. Those fields are what we are specifically looking for, but we might not know what we need or those needs might change. Anyone who wants to volunteer to help out as needed, we need to know what skills/experience you do have. If we need X done, there's no point in asking 20 people who can't do it.

[LittleRedToyota]

hey dan...

i am willing to help and can fulfill the role of copywriter. i have a lot of experience with professional writing (don't worry, i use capital letters and all that fun stuff when writing "for real". )

my company does investment education for retirement plan participants. most of my job ends up being computer programming, but i also do a lot of writing copy for educational pieces explaining various retirement investment topics in such a way that the average person can understand them.

i am also co-author of a book on retirement plan investing that has sold over 150,000 copies. i have also had several journal articles published. i have also written many reports summarizing the results of our consulting projects for for retirement plan trustees.

(i also write all of our software/intellectual property licensing contracts--which are then reviewed by our attorneys--so i actually also have a good bit of experience with legal writing.)

just lemme know what you want me to do.

(ETA: as far as how much time i can commit, it will vary. for some reason, our business seems to come in waves...sometimes i am completely overrun and won't be able to do much, but other times i just sit around twiddling my thumbs looking for something to do.)

ETA2: just realized i did not really follow the directions, so here are my answers to the specific questions:

Occupation: Computer programmer/401(k) communication product developer/retirement plan consultant/running small business

College Degree: BS in Information and Decision Systems from Carnegie Mellon Unitversity

Additional Skills: Writing/editing/proofreading/basic graphic design/research

Guaranteed Hours/Week Available: varies. some weeks, none. other weeks 10+ hours

Able to turn around work on short notice?: depends on what is going on at work at that point in time

[headcase]

Occupation: Electronic security system technician- alarms, access control, video
College Degree: No degree
Additional Skills: Can proofread, write, opine, use det cord...
Guaranteed Hours/Week Available:2-3hrs a week definite- most likely a great deal more.
Able to turn around work on short notice?: Usually


If you need something and I can help, just say so.