A blog snapshot

There is a bit of fun in being a blogger. Indeed, if it were devoid of fun I wouldn’t be doing it. And sometimes it has felt that way , albeit briefly. I am fascinated by who is reading what and where they are coming from. To me, the snapshot of volunteerism and those who manage volunteers can be encapsulated in the little blog that I write.

I have to give thanks to two companies that enable me to look at what is happening with my blog - Statcounter and Blogger

Statcounter is A free yet reliable invisible web tracker, highly configurable hit counter and real-time detailed web stats. StatCounter is a web traffic analysis tool. Access to basic services is free and advanced services can cost between $9 and $119 a month The company is based in Dublin.

I love their work!

Blogger is a blog-publishing service that allows private or multi-user blogs with time-stamped entries. It was created by Pyra Labs, which was bought by Google in 2003. Generally, the blogs are hosted by Google at a subdomain of blogspot.com. Up until May 1, 2010 Blogger allowed users to publish blogs on other hosts, via FTP. All such blogs had (or still have) to be moved to Google's own servers, with domains other than blogspot.com allowed via Custom URLs. In July of 2011 a news outlet announced that Google intends to change the name of the service from "Blogger" to "Google Blogs," as part of a larger plan to re-brand or retire all non-Google brands in its portfolio of products and services.

Ok now that the free plug is over I can get back to my point

Thus far I have had close to 20,000 individual readers in 15 months.

Here’s what I can determine about Volunteer Management based on what people are reading on this blog.

We have a huge sense of humour! We like jokes about volunteers and volunteer management or we are seeking out such humour! Volunteer Management Jokes a blog posted in August 2010 is still the most popular blog. Maybe we need some light relief every now and then!


On a serious note though we are very interested in the notion of leadership in Volunteer Management. My blog on Leadership in Volunteer Management posted in 2010 is the second most read blog and consistently gets views every day!

Thank you speeches for volunteers comes a close third. Many people are seeking guidance or appropriate words in their recognition of volunteers.

My next most popular post is in fact by a guest blogger. Coming in at number 4 is a piece on change management by Volunteer Coordinator Wendy Moore from Brisbane Australia. Wendy has obviously identified an area where Volunteer Managers are seeking guidance on!

I’ll just stick to the top 5 for brevity sake but its interesting to note that the 5th most read post is an article of mine titled “What’s holding us back”

I think it’s significant that out of just under 220 postings on this blog that this one hits the top five. It tells me that people are interested. It tells me that Volunteer Managers do care about the following:

“Do we have an embedded subliminal fear that our jobs are not “real” because we manage a movement that is unpaid – and thus devalued? Would a psychological analysis reveal some real fears on job security, career authenticity and a predisposition to not rock the boat at any cost?
Do we keep our heads down so we aren’t really noticed and thus keep our positions? Do we therefore have problem putting up boundaries. Do too many of us take on too much, with too little resources? We try to do it all, and then wonder why we aren't provided with the resources, pay, etc.
We won't be until we demand it by saying "No", I cannot do this without additional resources.Our jobs create and add enormous value to our societies. Let us stop being afraid to acknowledge that. Let us cease being fearful of validating ourselves and our profession.”

You Go you people reading this blog post!!!

My biggest audience comes from the United States with about 38% of viewers coming from there followed by Australia, Canada UK and then……Russia!
And of course I am happy to speak on Volunteer Management in any of those beautiful countries!!! LOL
And finally to end this blog, What are the key words that people enter on search engines that result in them finding my blog? This is for the last few days!

thank you speech for volunteers 240


volunteer jokes 163


volunteer thank you speech 96


thank you speech to volunteers 87


dj cronin 67


thank you speeches to volunteers 57


leadership 39


good news 38


volunteer thank you speeches 35



I hope you have enjoyed reading some of these stats!