Download Definition of "Grassroots Associations":

Definition of "Grassroots Associations":
Grassroots associations are locally based, significantly
autonomous, volunteer-run formal nonprofit (i.e., voluntary)
groups that manifest substantial voluntary altruism as groups
and use the associational form of organization and, thus, have
official memberships of volunteers who perform most, and
often all, of the work/activity done in and by these nonprofits.
(Smith, 2000, p. 8)
Definition of Grassroots Association
Grassroots associations are locally based, significantly
autonomous, volunteer-run formal nonprofit (i.e.,
voluntary) groups that manifest substantial voluntary
altruism as groups and use the associational form of
organization and, thus, have official memberships of
volunteers who perform most, and often all, of the
work/activity done in and by these nonprofits. (Smith,
2000, p. 8)
Grassroots associations and paid-staff voluntary groups
fall under the heading of voluntary groups: "nonprofit
groups of any type, whether grassroots associations or
based on paid staff, and whether local, national, or
international in scope" (Smith, 2000, p. ix).
Definition of Tribe:
Tribes are fragmented groupings left over from the
preceding era of mass consumption, groupings
recognized today by their unique tastes, lifestyles,
and form of social organization.
These groupings exist for the pleasure of their
members to share the warmth of being together,
socializing with each other, seeing and touching
each other, and so on, a highly emotional process.
In this they are both participants and observers, as
exemplified by in-group hairstyles, bodily
modifications, and items of apparel.
This produces a sort of solidarity among members
not unlike that found in the different religions and
primitive tribes.
16 TYPES OF ORGANIZATIONAL VOLUNTEERING:
•educational
•scientific
civic affairs
•spiritual development
•health
•economic development
•religion
•political
•governmental
•human relations
•recreational
•arts
•safety
•physical environment
•support services
•human necessities
Personal rewards:
1. Personal enrichment (cherished experiences)
2. Self-actualization (developing skills, abilities,
knowledge)
3. Self-expression (expressing skills, abilities, knowledge
already developed)
4. Self-image (known to others as a particular kind of
serious leisure participant)
5. Self-gratification (combination of superficial
enjoyment and deep satisfaction - fun, flow)
6. Re-creation (regeneration) of oneself through serious
leisure after a day's work
7. Financial return (from a serious leisure activity)
Social rewards:
8. Social attraction (associating with other serious
leisure participants, with clients as a volunteer,
participating in the social world of the activity)
9. Group accomplishment (group effort in
accomplishing a serious leisure project; senses of
helping, being needed, being altruistic)
10. Contribution to the maintenance and development of
the group (including senses of helping, being needed,
being altruistic in making the contribution)
CENTRAL LIFE INTEREST:
Robert Dubin (1992) defines central life interest as "that
portion of a person's total life in which energies are
invested in both physical/intellectual activities and in
positive emotional states." Sociologically, a central life
interest is often associated with a major role in life.
LIFESTYLE:
A lifestyle is a distinctive set of shared patterns of
tangible behavior that is organized around a set of
coherent interests or social conditions or both, that is
explained and justified by a set of related values,
attitudes, and orientations and that, under certain
conditions, becomes the basis for a separate, common
social identity for its participants (Stebbins, 1997b).
COSTS:
Disappointments
Dislikes
Tensions
Defining Project Leisure:
The following, a working definition, is useful for
exploration and tentative delimitation of the field.
Project leisure is a short-term, reasonably complicated,
one-off or occasional, though infrequent, creative
undertaking carried out in free time that requires
considerable planning, effort, and sometimes skill or
knowledge but that is neither serious leisure nor
intended to develop into such.
"Occasional" describes regular, widely spaced,
undertakings for such occasions as Christmas,
someone's birthday, or a national holiday.
"Creative" stresses that the undertaking results in
something new or different, showing imagination and
perhaps routine skill or knowledge.
It appears that, in some instances, project leisure
springs from a sense of obligation to undertake it. If so,
it is nonetheless uncoerced activity; the obligation is in
fact "agreeable" (Stebbins, 2000).
Project leisure does not refer to projects executed as
part of a person's serious leisure, such as mounting a
star night as an amateur astronomer or a model train
display as a collector.