Need to figure out how to get the important stuff

I need to figure out how to get the important stuff permanently at the top if this blog, instead of my latest volunteer-related rambling.

In the meantime, here is the important stuff that should be on the top of the page, before I start rambling:

Volunteer Application
FAQ
Volunteer Manual

Tomorrow's a national holiday, which means that myself and some of the other HANDS regulars are taking a mid-week trip to Kamaishi.

I think I might have been at least partly misinterpreting that graph of incoming volunteers--that dip in October, at least for Kamaishi, is probably in part because the volunteer center there stopped accepting volunteers without pre-registration in October. It does not mean you should not come. You should come.

First, a little explanation about volunteer centers, keeping in mind this is the explanation of an imperfect-Japanese-speaking, late to the party, "I got the memo three weeks later" foreigner.

Volunteer centers take requests from locals, or sometimes from the city itself, for volunteers to come and perform a certain task. For example, let's say my yard has rubble in it and I want volunteers to come pick it up. I go to the volunteer center and have a consultation session with them. The staff member I consult with listens to what I need and records on a form estimating what tools, how many people, and how many days are needed for this project.

Every day, a number of volunteers come to the volunteer center and are assigned one of these projects. If it's a big project, many groups of people and individual volunteers might get combined into a big megagroup (technically speaking). If it's a big project and there aren't many people, your tiny group might be assigned to a project that is clearly not going to finish that day.
But it's OK--projects can take more than the estimated time when the volunteer center decides that's appropriate. Some projects take less than a day, some can take a week or more.

Earlier on, essentially any number of people just showing up to Kamaishi was great. No matter how many people showed up, it was fine, because there was a very big urgent problem and you just had to throw as many people at the problem as possible. Everyone who came, even without notice, would have work.

Now, it sounds like there is a steady stream of less jobs than before coming in. This does not mean at all that the volunteer center doesn't need volunteers. It means that the volunteer center needs a preferably stable number of people coming in who register in advance.

It's like donating goods. Before, you could throw a lot of food and blankets in a truck and bring it to the disaster area and there was a very good chance someone could use it. Now, the need is still there but NPOs and such are planning to match the supply to the demand.

Anyway, there is definitely still demand, and you can definitely be part of the supply, if you fill out that registration form so the volunteer center knows you're coming! Hint hint hint.
(Those who already filled out that form before don't need to fill it out again, just need to tell HANDS you're coming.)

I had a dream a few weeks ago that A, a volunteer and friend who's come a couple of times, was sitting with the HANDS volunteer group. And I was like, "A, what are you doing here? You weren't here this morning?" And she said "Well, I figured I would just show up and help in the afternoon!"
"But A," I said, in great distress, "HAVE YOU FILLED OUT YOUR REGISTRATION FORM?"
Which is silly because she already had anyway.
I never knew I would turn out to be such an anxious paper-pusher. Who has dreams about registration forms? Who does that?...