Dave Watterson wrote: ↑Thu Jan 03, 2019 2:57 pm
There seems to be no great shortage of people willing to work - and work hard - for a short time in any aspect of our hobby. What is becoming much harder to find are people prepared to work for the long haul, to hold committee offices, act as reporters and organisers.
My apologies for taking this off topic, but Dave's comment above applies to life in general. It is very difficult to commit to anything in life when one has so little confidence in what one's circumstances will be in the future. I'm perhaps from the generation which has seen this particular change in society the most.
When I began work in 1978, we lived in a country where a university degree was not considered essential for anything other than the most unskilled of manual labour jobs. University education was available to maybe 10-15% or the population and was free (to the individual, obviously it was paid for by the taxpayer). If, like me, you started work for a large company (or in local, county/metropolitan or central government) unless you were a high-flier, you expected you'd be able to work for that same company, or move to a similar role in a similar company for life. Ambitious people would expect to progress within the same organisation. I should perhaps add that my view is also seen through the lens of my father who, forced to leave education at 15 due to poverty, started as an office junior at Surrey County Council and spent his whole working life there, earning professional qualifications and rising to the top ranks of local government officers (the local government equivalent of the civil service) before retiring early on a full pension (based on final earnings and index linked)
In the 80s (I guess), possibly as a result of the Thatcher governments (although this does not seem limited to the UK), things changed. If one didn't "move on" every couple of years, one was considered to be unambitious. People move around a lot more. And people are looking for quick results. Everything is measured against short term targets.
The fact that people are less willing to take on tasks for the long term is simply a reflection of this - they cannot anticipate with any degree of confidence their circumstances and so cannot commit to anything long term.