Volunteer Work - Dispute

[CarolPeletier]

I work for a charity as a volunteer. I felt that a colleague was making decisions without consulting other charity organisers and questioned her on this in a meeting. I was completely polite and phrased it as "I may be wrong, but shouldnt this be voted on". She took me aside after the meeting and was very rude and abrupt telling me I should have spoken to her privately (we never normally speak outside of meetings). She was so awful to me I was close to tears and no longer feel able to continue working there. I have handed in my resignation, but others have since commented it is unfair that I leave doing something I love because she was nasty to me, and she should leave for being intimidating and downright nasty. She is more qualified than me, and ultimately the charity will benefit more from her being there than me. I do not want to work with her any more as I hate conflict and was volunteering for a fun outlet, which this no longer is now.
So, was I unreasonable to bring the issue up in a meeting rather than speaking to her?
She WAS unreasonable in how she spoke to me after, but am I unreasonable to leave because of this?
Is it unreasonable that I feel i have to leave, even though she was at fault, rather than her leave?
Eurgh.... I hate conflict...

ia she a volunteer too? do you have a volunteer coordinator or manager contact in the charity you can speak to?

it's better to resolve than to walk away 9 times out of 10 :)

I think more info is needed on what she said really.

She was *itchy because you were probably quite close to the truth and she was embarrassed.
If you were aware of the issue BEFORE the meeting it would have been more professional to raise it with her-and if her response concerned you then seen someone else at the organization about it privately

If the cause is important to you and you want to stay then raise yourself above what happened and act as if it didn't

It's sounds like she was rude, although without knowing what she said, it's hard to know whether you have perhaps over-reacted or not. Is there not a co-ordinator or manager who you could discuss your feelings with? It seems a shame to let one incident stop you doing something you enjoy- might be worth just chalking it up to experience and ignore her.

Is it not possible to resolve this without one of you having to leave? Perhaps you could see if there is a way you could still volunteer but minimise the time you have to spend with her? Or is there not another way to resolve this- tell her how you feel and see if she will apologise, for example.

If you only see her during meetings, and it's hard to get hold of her otherwise, I dint see how you could have done it any other way. Even if you did wrong, most people are professional enough to raise it politely afterwards rather than laying into you.