What's in a name?

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PaddleBear
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Joined: Sat Jun 08, 2019 8:08 pm

What's in a name?

Post by PaddleBear » Mon Jun 10, 2019 8:32 pm

What do we call ourselves?

At Lake Hodges we are technically volunteering for the City of San Diego. The only volunteer job that their bureaucracy acknowledges at this lake is "quagga mussel inspector". So that's how we have to sign up. I've never inspected for a quagga mussel. It's just how we fill out the form. I have begun to think of our group as "Wildlife Safety Volunteers". I am thinking about attempting to make this official, but I'm open to other suggestions before I begin that ordeal. We hope to encourage volunteer groups in other geographical regions and it would be helpful and possibly influential to all of us if there was a standard "job description" for what we do. If you go to an authority and start describing what you want to do, their eyes will glaze over before the end of the second sentence. If you go in and say you would like to be a Wildlife Safety Volunteer - or whatever we all decide is best - then you start out way ahead.

And what about the positions in a kayak? We use a tandem kayak with the rear seat position handling the boat and the front seat position untangling line and picking up stuff. There are a number of reasons for this which are discussed elsewhere on this site, but suffice it to say that these roles work very well. So what do we call these two positions? Bow-person / Stern person? I'm always in the rear seat position in our boat, but I'm not stern. ;)

I've thought about Bowrider for the front position, but my wife isn't so tickled about that. I always refer to the rear position as "me", but these forums have shown the need to name that position, too.

Those of you with single kayaks do not have different positions/roles to name, you do it all, but we still need your input on the general name of what we do.

I'm open to your thoughts. What do we call:
  1. Our general "job description".
  2. Front seat position.
  3. Rear seat position.
--Brian Godfrey
Forum Admin

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