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Old 12-01-2022, 03:21 PM   #1
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Iowa camp host volunteers needed

The Iowa Department of Natural Resources is looking for volunteers to host state park campgrounds. The hosts will live at state parks for the months of April through October, working 20 to 30 hours per week. Volunteers will have the following responsibilities: Work with DNR staff to ensure that campers have the best experience possible in Iowa’s state parks, Provide a welcoming presence in our campgrounds, Act as models for other campers, Provide park information to visitors, Clean restrooms, Perform light administrative and/or maintenance tasks.


https://www.iowadnr.gov/About-DNR/DN...reation-season
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Old 12-01-2022, 08:49 PM   #2
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Originally Posted by AC0GV View Post
The Iowa Department of Natural Resources is looking for volunteers to host state park campgrounds. The hosts will live at state parks for the months of April through October, working 20 to 30 hours per week. Volunteers will have the following responsibilities: Work with DNR staff to ensure that campers have the best experience possible in Iowa’s state parks, Provide a welcoming presence in our campgrounds, Act as models for other campers, Provide park information to visitors, Clean restrooms, Perform light administrative and/or maintenance tasks.


https://www.iowadnr.gov/About-DNR/DN...reation-season
This may open a can of worms, but soliciting volunteers for what clearly should be done by professional park employees really sticks in my craw. Campground host fine , but this is a philosophical approach to park management that you get volunteers to work that staff should be paid to do. I saw it in my carreer. No thanks.
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Old 12-01-2022, 09:13 PM   #3
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While there have been support organizations that have funded or actually improved public facilities (parks, campgrounds, memorials etc.) Thenlast 50 years have certainly changed the dynamics. From my first paid experiences in public recreation in 1969 throughout my career that ended in 2009, I experienced “doing more with less”, having to set up and recruit volunteer organizations, being politically influenced in decisions from moneyed organizations, and flat out attempted to succeed when given impossible tasks. And not physically impossible but biologically unsound, unsafe for citizens and workers, and on and on.

A good camp host in a reasonable situation such as having to call the right emergency service, law enforcement, give directions to local attractions, host an informational coffee on a Saturday morning, or answer questions on the park or campground are worth their weight in firewood.

But to expect toilet cleaning, mowing, tree trimming, road work, painting buildings etc is just another way to cut budgets and watch the resource degrade. With over three decades of watching the shift happen, I will be most happy to hear different opinions on the camp host conundrum but I won’t be changing my opinion, volunteering or approving the trolling of public sites in my home state of Iowa.

Especially while the governor throws park rangers out of their houses and sits on a 1.9 BILLION DOLLAR, state surplus. Shameless.
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Old 12-02-2022, 10:52 AM   #4
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Sign of the times.......those self check out stands in various stores are simply to get you to do what checkers use to get paid for.....also.....ever use an ATM....they put thousands of tellers out of work. I remember when an attendant use to put gas in your car....clean your windows and check your oil. That's progress I guess........pretty soon state parks will be asking us to mow the grass in our camp spots.
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Old 12-03-2022, 04:58 AM   #5
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I guess I was under the mistaken impression that there are minimum wage laws. And while this is a volunteer position, most people volunteer to help those who are needy, e.g., food bank workers, blood bank assistants, or youth activity assistants, and other non-profit situations.

I do not know Iowa law, but if the Iowa Constitution allows for citizen initiatives, one solution to this situation would be to pass a citizen initiative requiring every member of the Iowa Legislature as part of their legislative duties to “volunteer” for two or three weeks annually when the legislature is not in session for “unpaid” volunteer position of State of Iowa agencies, like the State Parks. I would guess that the next legislative session would result in a bill that the State would be required to pay at least minimum wages for for these so-called volunteers. Elected politicians are establishing policies and it would seem obvious that they would never perform the functions they are hoping volunteers will do.
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Old 12-03-2022, 09:11 AM   #6
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At one point National Park Service policy forbidded volunteers from doing work that would normally be a necessary function performed by paid staff. This was discarded under an administration that was less friendly to government staff and combined with outsourcing to contractors decimated the professional staff at the park I worked at. I am a fan of volunteers in the National Park Service, but it’s a fine line of what is an appropriate role. We did large cleanups of the River banks on certain days with a massive effort, a volunteer group wrote a trail guide to the park etc. Then they began to staff visitor centers with volunteers, even sometimes the only staff present rather than an augmented operation. I ran a large outdoor festival for the first park I worked in, we had a volunteer staff of 300 for an event that was a weekend. Plenty of paid staff worked it also, but this was an effort that could not have been done without a volunteer staff. However, the weren’t involved in electrical work, sanitation removal, traffic control, ems, sound and lights etc. They did pickup artists from the airport, transport artists around the festival site and assisted law enforcement rangers with parking cars. Just my opinion.
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