Would you give up or keep "helping"?

[LindaPen]

I'm a very keen and long standing member of a sports club. I was on the committee for a decade but stood down a few years ago because I'd had enough of the grief you get, nothing is ever good enough for some people.

Since then I've made a determined effort to support club events and never criticise, believing that if you're not prepared to step up, you have to accept what those who do do. I always step up when they need volunteers for anything but I'm no longer involved in organising anything.

Anyway recently a new enthusiastic "marketing" person has joined the committee. He's done a great job and really got the message out about our events, attendances have rocketed. However, he can't spell and his grammar is appalling (please don't check mine!).

I've pointed some errors out previously and offered my assistance as proof reader before publication, should that be welcome, but it hasn't been taken up. On one flyer last year, the club name was spelt incorrectly!

They've just released the entries for a series of summer events and the errors make my toes curl, but I feel that my interference isn't necessarily seen as helpful and I do completely understand the anoyance with peole who always want to critisise. WWYD?

I wouldn’t raise any further errors. You’ve offered them help, they haven’t taken you up on it, it seems they’d rather muddle along. Leave them to it.

I know, but I'm fiercely proud of this club and feel it damages the public image

Cringeworthy. Insist that they do need a proofreader.
Send back a leaflet with a red ring around all the errors 🤭

Assuming that everyone else on the committee can read/spell....they've obviously decided to let it go and it's their decision, not yours now.

The bad spelling/grammar doesn't seem to have negatively impacted the marketing if attendance is way up.

This would annoy me too. There is a local magazine in my town that's full of spelling mistakes and it's cringe-worthy. However, the only people responsible for the errors are the writer and editor (if there is one) and it doesn't really reflect badly on anyone else involved in the magazine. So I think it will be clear that only the person who did the marketing is to blame, although someone definitely should've picked up that the club name was wrong!

I'm an editor and this would kill me but...attendance is up so it clearly doesn't bother a lot of people.

It would annoy the hell out of me too, but I think you should keep quiet or risk being told "If you don't like it, you do it". (This is coming from someone who is trying hard to support the school's PTA, while not being roped into being on the PTA.)

I was in a similar situation. I looked after comms for a local club, also bringing them into the 21st century by moving membership over to the governing body's online system rather than relying on paper forms and cheques/bank transfers.

But the moans and complaining from dinosaur committee members led to me throwing the towel in. It's what I do professionally, I'm very good at it but none of that was appreciated.

Another person has taken over with some of the committee sending out emails when there's something urgent. There's now no strategy and newsletters and social media are either non-existent or full of spelling errors, including incorrect spelling of the club name.

I keep quiet - life's too short and I focus my volunteering efforts elsewhere, where they're valued.

That would infuriate me! I do feel that in this instance you probably should just let them get on with it though. Maybe they'll take notice when members of the public start pointing out the errors.

By the way, there's a spelling error in your last paragraph... 😉