Burnout at Nottingham Hackspace

Overview

Burnout, however we define it, is an issue with work and volunteering roles.

On Wednesday 26 April 2023, Mike Haber and Jennifer Moore ran a facilitated session discussing peoples experience of Burnout. Mike has a page https://cleanlearning.co.uk/about/facilitators/mike-haber

Of course the details of this discussion is private to the group, however there were some takeaways.

The event took place on zoom after a weekly meeting.

Advertising the Event

The burnout event was advertised with the following slack message.

"Burnout experiences", with Mike & Jennifer, Wed 26 April 2023 Hi folksAnyone here had an experience of "burning out"?

Anyone on the way?

Anyone _nearly_ gone there and then managed not to? We'd like to encourage conversations at the Hackspace about burnout, and the effects it can have.We're offering an online session where we'll share our experiences and hear from others.  It'll be a side event from Gareth's Wednesday evening online meetup, in a breakout room.The kind of thing we're aiming for is a friendly, non-advice-giving, mutual-support kind of listening.  Examples don’t have to be Hackspace-related;  it can be about any kind of burnout from anywhere. 

If you don't feel like talking, it's also okay to come along and just listen.We're facilitators rather than "burnout experts", and we'll aim to keep the discussion on track. Date: Wednesday 26 April 2023, as part of Gareth's online meeting.Time: 19.45 to 20.45.Start time of the overall meeting run by Gareth: **19.00**.

The timing means that people can arrive on the Zoom any time after 19.00 if they want, and potentially have a bit of a general natter before the interested people nip off to our themed thing.Hope to see some of you there-

from Jennifer and Mike

Takeways

The session seemed to work well, with people sharing their stories, and asking questions. Takeaways about the Hackspace that can be shared:

• Volunteering at the Hackspace often is done via teams. Burnout is often not visible, we just see active members become less active or leave the space.

• Limiting duration of Volunteering has helped avoid burnout
• Offer 'Exits' / Volunteer Amnesty Day has helped volunteers step back (https://www.volunteeramnestyday.net) this is June 23rd 2023!

• Normalising taking time off volunteering and coming back could be encouraged

Actions

• Trustees/The Space is currently looking at getting volunteers on teams after the space was closed for Covid.

• We can raise Burnout and the thoughts we have about it on the Teams pages on the wiki.

It would be good if the potential for burnout and its impact could be discussed as part of running the space.

Design of the discussion

Some though was put into designing the space to discuss burnout. We'd like people to be able to share their experiences, listen to others, and be able to ask questions. The session was designed as 'Mutual Aid' rather than an advice session.

To make this more likely the event was framed as a chance to discuss your examples and experience of burnout - not to offer opinions or advice, unless they were part of an example that you had experience of.

We wanted to avoid giving advice, discussing the exact definition of burnout or blame.