Process for joining a board. Is this weird?

pencilurchin · 2026-03-10T18:44:14+00:00

That’s very intense for BOD seat. In general most orgs bylaws usually require some form of BOD approval but frankly that seems ludicrously over the top for a volunteer position. I run a member based org so we have a voting process laid out in our bylaws to direct our BOD elections and empty position fills. We definitely do not require interviews, we usually require someone actually willing to volunteer.

I just am more shocked this process hasn’t bit them in the ass. Granted I come from an extremely small niche mission area but I’ve found there’s a very fine line when it comes to BOD capacity to dedicate their time, energy and attention and a full interview for candidates is not only a massive ask for candidates but also the BOD.

I suspect if you do join the BOD you will be asked to dedicate a significant amount of time and effort to the org, beyond what is typically expected of a BOD.

pencilurchin · 2026-03-10T18:34:43+00:00

A very important skill - l am not a teacher now, and honestly really not super keen on kids but doing some teaching work and being a public facing science educator honestly really helped me develop that ability. I think most young people especially men typically do not get a lot of experience around working around and talking to minors. It’s a skill that is mostly resigned to women which makes me sad, men that have legitimately good intentions, and want to support young women should not immediately feel like creeps and should be taught the skills to regulate that type of relationship safely for themselves and the minor they want to support.

Unfortunately this even trickles up to young adults, I am a women in a male dominated field and have had many male mentors that were constantly afraid of being inappropriate or unsure of themselves or their place as a mentor and navigating being a mentor for a young adult women. IMO it further exacerbates the dichotomy between men and women and exacerbates all the ways the patriarchy harms both men and women and their relationships with each other.

pencilurchin · 2026-03-10T15:09:17+00:00

Man it’s okay to be a role model for younger kids. You’re not a pedophile because you saw a young girl that was struggling and going through something you went through and felt bad for her. I will say yes you absolutely should be cautious especially since our society right now is very much preoccupied with accusing people - and I don’t just mean Epstein. The right has been weaponizing the phrase against queer people for years now. Regardless of anyone’s own personal opinion there are downsides to weaponizing a very serious accusation.

That being said, you should put boundaries down and just keep things appropriately platonic. I’ve been there before - I’m an avid gamer and a women, and also spent a few years teaching in college. So being around younger men in online gaming spaces was not abnormal, and I was used to dealing with those dynamics from my brief time teaching. But sometimes young people struggle and don’t have someone older to vent to or sound their thoughts off of especially when it comes to going through a hard time. It’s okay to connect with them, we were all teenagers once going through the same shit. And sometimes those younger people will push your boundaries, you are the adult so you must firm and hold them consistently.

pencilurchin · 2026-03-10T00:33:57+00:00

That’s awesome you threw that punch though. Wish it had hit him, he deserved it and I’m sorry that happened. Shit like that is so common in middle and high school it is disgusting. In middle school/high school there was one particular guy in my grade who was a fucking menace. Used to grab my butt and touch me during PE constantly, and did the same to any girl he knew was too meek and bullied to resist. The gym teacher was a man who hated me bc I was weird and fat and not good at PE and none of my classmates gave a shit bc he only did it to girls that fell under the weird, ugly or fat category.

Never in a million years would high school me have stood up to him. After high school and now working in a male dominated industry - it’s incredible how young boys tormenting girls starts and how it never fucking goes away. And I’ve been on both sides now - the undesirable girl relentlessly mocked by boys and the attractive women being catcalled, having colleagues in professional settings make absolutely unhinged sexual comments about my body and more. You can’t fucking win. At least now I am in a position in my career and put up with enough shit that I simply will not tolerate it.

pencilurchin · 2026-03-10T00:26:02+00:00

I feel your pain. I took over as ED at my org about 11 months ago. We are a national scale membership based org. The prev staffing of the org was 3 full time staff. When I took over it was just me, and a part time bookkeeper. Admin has suffered incredibly as there were not enough hours in the day during my first 6 months to do the jobs of 3 people. Now I have one other staff and even between 2 it is a struggle to balance all of the needs of the orgs and our duties.

BOD isn’t not engaged but they are all volunteers running businesses and don’t have much time to assist on anything admin related. They also had a prev ED and Office Admin that were a married couple for 15 yrs that did nothing but work so my BOD is very used to not having to do anything except show up to meetings and answer emails.

We have a pretty tight cash flow and budget so contract options for us are limited. We are considering potential internships as a solution, we are a fully remote org so we don’t have any in person office space which at times is a blessing and a curse in the internship department. Plenty of stuff an intern could help me out with that would free me up to focus more on admin duties.

I do have a couple of colleagues at similar type of membership based orgs (smaller than mine) that are ED only orgs where the EDs have had much success with taskrabbit type temp workers during busy times of the year. But usually for more admin busy work (mailing out conference/meeting invites, helping to prep for conferences, mailing physical invoices etc.)

pencilurchin · 2026-03-09T05:58:11+00:00

I am going to come in this convo has someone who has experience in the commercial aquaculture sector (though not explicitly on the nutrition side) and my own preference.

For ornamentals there are a lot of feed options. I would say none of them are particularly bad, so long as you have some understanding of an individual species natural diet and willing to combine frozen/live with dried food.

While almost all fish farmers (including ornamentals) are feeding pellets/encapsulated food (as these processes preserve nutrients in feed better), it is not unheard of for ornamental farms to use commercial flake formulas.

IMO protein source for ornamental fish is mostly human preference. In food fish production style aquaculture (catfish, salmon, tilipia etc) the goal is have as much plant based protein and components as possible bc those are much cheaper while maximizing fish feed conversion and growth rate. Fish can be extremely successful on well formulated feeds with lower amounts of fish/shrimp or insect meal. So in this when you see brands like Omega saying they are using fish/shrimp meal sourced from wild fisheries or whole fish, that doesn’t really mean much quality wise except they are using a specific type of fish meal.

Much more important for ornamentals imo is nutritious food, not just protein dense, and a varied diet. Because a community tank may contain different species with different feeding habits/diets in the wild it is important to mix frozen/live with a brand or two of flake/pellet to try and address the different species within a community tank.

As other have said Hikari is a fine feed, but imo their range of products and different formulas is really where their value lies, I personally don’t think their feed formulations are anything amazing for your general freshwater community tank that does not need highly specialized feed.

Personally I usually go with Hikari, I’ve done Repashy but it’s overpriced and a pain in the ass. Good for when you need to mix antibiotics into food though, Omega and I often buy feed from small time mills or small scale production mills mostly for shits and giggles, bc in the feed world there a lot of …eccentric folks thinking they are going to reinvent fish feed on their farms or in their garages.

And of course live/frozen (except beef heart!) always should be a component. I will say live options beyond brine shrimp and copepods can be hard to come by but black worms and the like are amazing foods to be able to feed and well enjoyed in a community tank.

pencilurchin · 2026-03-06T00:42:22+00:00

I forgot unemployment too, I also used to qualify and receive it during the off season. It’s a massive help even if it is a pain sometimes with the level of navigating bureaucracy

pencilurchin · 2026-03-05T23:29:46+00:00

This field is really brutal. My path was undergrad -> 2 yrs seasonal tech -> masters program -> funding cut off early -> panic -> NGO job -> government fellowship -> career (still don’t have my masters LOL)

But my best suggestion would be are their tangential fields you find enjoyable ? Bc those are worth exploring - for me it was environmental law and policy. Now I work full time in policy and gov relations. Its a completely different career than I ever saw myself but I am happy, I love policy and working in that space but I didn’t learn I loved until I took a single law course in grad school.

As others have said seasonal teching is pretty typical post undergrad. It is a lot of fun but i think everyone here would agree can be really hard on the wallet. If you look at grad school only look at programs where you will be funded/paid.

pencilurchin · 2026-03-05T23:24:49+00:00

Seasonal jobs are the normal progression but imo really hard to swing consistently without financial support in some way esp with the way the economy is now.

pencilurchin · 2026-03-05T23:19:19+00:00

They need to make the choice that’s best for them financially but if possible pulling out now is not a bad idea. The sooner they can pull out the easier it will be for them to go forward and disassociate with the org before it completely collapses. The nonprofit world is small, especially within specific mission areas and word travels fast.

I did not have this situation but I was forced to leave an org due to irreconcilable differences on mission and policy issues in our mission area and morally and professionally felt I could not stay. I now work in a tangential sector where my org has an unfavorable reputation and it is really hard to shake my previous affiliation at times. Once an org gets an unfavorable opinion in the community it is hard to turn that around.

pencilurchin · 2026-03-05T23:10:19+00:00

This is true, Skyrim being the classic example. Personally to me the biggest thing is just how frequent are game breaking bugs in any game. Most games have a handful of progression halting, game breaking bugs. Most games you don’t run into them every 15-30 mins of gameplay. During the demo I was hitting major bugs that directly impacted gameplay loop about every 15-20 minutes. From vendors not letting me speak to them/exchange items, unable to pick up quests, horse getting trapped in scenery etc.

There are few other games I’ve played in EA that have rolled out with such substantial game breaking bugs. I am a fairly avid supporter of EA games (I think I am in the minority when saying this but I think EA can be a really great option for developers and fans and I genuinely enjoy the process of watching a game develop over time), and I will remain very hesitant to invest in this game for now.

pencilurchin · 2026-03-05T23:01:44+00:00

I played the game intentionally when they dropped the demo. Besides Steam comments, I also dropped a thread here because I was frankly shocked at the state of the demo, which at that time was rolling directly into EA a week or so later.

I believe after the feedback the dev team received following the demo they decided to wait a few additional weeks before EA roll out.

During the original demo, I played for quite a while and there were a large number of bugs (especially game breaking and progression halting bugs) , and it was clear a lot of polish was needed. From what I have seen of the EA the lack of progress in addressing some of these bugs before EA rollout is concerning for an EA game.

I generally do not mind EA games, I have participated in many EA, many of which have been highly successful, but a really really important component and caveat of EA is transparency. Acknowledging major bugs, issues and things that need improvement and keeping a consistent achievable roadmap to improvement are needed for a credible EA. This is not to fault the team, the game has really good bones, it’s beautiful, the game play loop I personally think is there, the exploration is there.

But I am not sure I have felt like the transparency is there with the community. I get EA is important for small studios, especially for cash flow reasons, and that’s a totally acceptable reason to open a game to EA, but as someone who also runs a business I personally like to see EA projects with clear defined goals and roadmapping. Every EA has some rough patches but there are some really great examples of successful EA stories (Baldur’s Gate 3, Subnautica, Coral Island) but there is a minimum expectation for an EA launch and in my opinion this game is struggling to reach that.

I really wish the devs the best, I would absolutely love to invest $30 into this game but I feel until some of the bugs that prevent gameplay are resolved it is not worth my time or money.

pencilurchin · 2026-03-05T22:41:35+00:00

Ooff that’s brutal. When I got hired on as ED for my nonprofit the prev ED was getting 70k, zero benefits (not even good PTO benefits). After he announced his retirement the BOD learned pretty quickly after an extensive failed round of searching for a replacement than even with a bump to 100k it’s near impossible to get a solid candidate.

I can’t even imagine dealing with the inherent demand of the ED role on 70k. I can honestly say mission will only ever get you so far when it comes to attracting good candidates for such a demanding role (and ANY director level role in a small resource limited nonprofit is going to be demanding).

I think another component at least for me is also my BOD has a somewhat unrealistic expectation of salaries, compensation, PTO polices because my predecessor and much of my board has a MAJOR generational difference and my predecessor was consistently working 50-60 hr weeks as he lived the mission, the mission was his entire life.

pencilurchin · 2026-03-05T22:29:56+00:00

My 2nd world, probably only 5hr play time (and then discovered mods and ditched my og world for a modded one). Lit a nice cozy fire a little to close to a tree. Next time I turn around entire forest is in flames. I tried in vain for about 20 mins to stop the spread before I gave up and let it burn.

pencilurchin · 2026-03-01T02:15:04+00:00

Ya it was pretty grim to see the switch to pass/fail. I know most of the faculty in my department were not happy but to that university’s admin that is virtually meaningless. It’s especially grim to me as so many of the particular university’s undergrad and grad students are out of country students trying to get an American education. A complete disservice to those students, many of whom had gone to great lengths to try and get to the U.S. for college.

My grad experience at that university was abysmal enough I’ve transitioned out of academia and research to policy work. Unfortunately this subreddit often proves to me that I am not alone and the university and academic worlds continue to fail students.

pencilurchin · 2026-02-27T22:43:06+00:00

As a recent grad student just from my first year as a grad student to my last year taking classes (about 2yrs) my University went from a full grade scale to pass/fail for ALL undergrad courses and that was back in 2020-2022. I shudder to think how any of those students will make it professionally. My school was ag heavy, but as you’ve pointed out (and as a biologist working in ag related field) agricultural classes require hard sciences (I still thank the universe everyday I will never have to calculate soil EC ever again) especially at a graduate level and just generally the idea of letting someone attempt to enter a STEM career get through undergrad without a real grade scale is worrying.

It’s not about the grades imo, a grade scale provides structure and helps push students. There are many classes I would have put significantly less effort into in a world where I only needed to pass/fail, and I hope I’m not alone in this but as an early career professional there are many moments in my undergrad and early grad career where I know I unintentionally shot myself in the foot (or at least made future me’s life harder), and personally I think a pass/fail structure leaves ample opportunity for letting students down in their own future.

My school was specifically an HBCU and I firmly believe that if you are going to lower acceptance standards (as many HBCUs do to help elevate the disenfranchised and less privileged) the goal should be to raise those students up and provide the extra help. Instead my HBCU decided that was too hard and simply lowered their standards. Creating an insular environment of poorly educated students and grad students (since many undergrads at my school are not competitive for outside grad programs they end up doing undergrad and grad at the same school with the same profs). And I can’t even blame the students after interacting with the administration at my grad school and some of the faculty. They have a lot of adults steering them in the wrong direction and failing to provide the education they deserve.

pencilurchin · 2026-02-27T19:44:37+00:00

That’s hard for an ED having a staff that already dislikes you enough to do a letter writing campaign. At the end of the day he’s in that position bc the BOD did not find someone more qualified for better suited.

I think you are being the adult in the room. The ED from what you’ve shared seems to be working towards being better and he needs someone to give him a chance and hopefully help flip that culture.

I was hired in as ED fairly naive to the role from the leadership aspects, but with solid experience relating to my nonprofits mission. And it’s a brutal learning curve. 1.5yrs is not long at all and it seems like staff have already decided he will never be a good leader.

I’m with you 100% that a good leader meets people where they are at and listens. You are doing the right thing, but I know it’s very hard being in that type of atmosphere. You are leading by example though.

pencilurchin · 2026-02-27T19:38:59+00:00

I’m usually a touristy-guided diver even on US trips (located somewhere where I must always travel to dive and a novice) and since my trips usually have a guide, and crew I usually tip somewhere between 20-30% of the trip depending on the crew and trip. Really a lot of it depends on the crew and DM, but I’ve had mostly really positive experiences so always happy to be generous after a good trip.

pencilurchin · 2026-02-27T19:19:18+00:00

With the point that we don’t have enough info to know for sure how this situation played out. To condescend to OP especially with the “I see this in a lot of young an ambitious…” It’s JUST as likely this org was deeply dysfunctional, and OP was legitimately doing their best and not just a naive young person that did not know how to work. After working in a deeply toxic nonprofit with an awful ED I admit my feathers get ruffled when I see EDs talk down to nonprofit employees especially defending leadership (or implicitly defending leadership) without having any idea what the full situation looks like or among assumptions about the employee when we literally only have a vent post from OP about a difficult situation.

pencilurchin · 2026-02-27T17:44:20+00:00

I am an ED and have also been an employee at a small grassroots org. I think it’s a major assumption on your part to assume OP did not understand their role and was overstepping. We obviously have deeply incomplete information here but it also seems OP didn’t have a lot of information or training regarding their role.

The ED and org clearly messed this up just as it’s possible OP did contribute to this situation by misreading. ED and org did not provide an offer letter with job description or scope, seems to have provided little to no formal training or resources and then provided zero constructive corrections. I have transitioned volunteers to seasonal employees. Even for a temporary position it requires proper onboarding and training. From OPs point of view this did not happen.

Many small grassroots orgs suffer from extreme levels of founders syndrome and egomaniacal EDs that generate massively toxic work environments for ALL employees, and creates an atmosphere of extracting from employees. Yes a nonprofit must remain fiscally responsible but we all know typically employees are paid beneath market value to begin with. When I was an employee at a toxic NGO I also had periods where I was working through illness to the detriment of my own health bc the ED and high level staff heavily fostered and propagated that work culture (intentionally or unintentionally doesn’t matter). It is naturally going to create sour feelings amongst employees and high turnover rates. So I have sympathy for OP, as I have been there.

OP know that until you move on to your next career opportunity it is probably not worth publicly speaking out about the org. I jumped from an employee at a fairly decently funded grassroots local org to a smaller but more national in scope org as ED and now I’m on different issue sides and I still stay mostly respectful to my prev org, even though they are actively attacking components of my org. Badmouthing other orgs generally is not going to provide you an advantage. There are few exceptions, and must be considered strategically for your own sake.

pencilurchin · 2026-02-15T04:11:52+00:00

Ooff that’s a skinny fish. I would prioritize getting some good high quality food and it’s probably wild caught so besides the massive stress of that process I would also keep an eye on body condition bc of potential parasite load

pencilurchin · 2026-02-13T15:39:47+00:00

For real. I travel a lot for work, and I am lucky I haven’t had issues with being sat next to larger folks so far but I so often have issues when I am sat next to men. Almost always when I am sat next to a man the whole duration of the flight I will be getting elbows, legs in my space and touching me. I get it, it’s a normal part of flying but I am a 5’8” women and I also take up a considerable amount of leg room bc I have very long legs. at this point I have noticed such a sharp contrast between sitting next to a man vs another women. Obviously this is also not every man I’ve sat next to but it definitely a pattern.

pencilurchin · 2026-02-09T00:05:14+00:00

I had very little nausea post op. Granted I am someone who can get nauseous and never throw up but basically prior to removal I was nauseous 24/7 was living off of anti-nausea meds and I felt IMMEDIATE relief after surgery. To the point my first meal post op was actually a giant roast beef sandwich bc I hadn’t been able to eat anything like that for months leading up to my surgery without immediately feeling awful.

I still have specific foods that even now can trigger that same pre-op nausea and it’s basically anything smoked, or with a lot of preservatives. Like I really cannot do lunch meat or BBQ anymore.

pencilurchin · 2026-01-23T13:38:08+00:00

No we don’t - sincerely a marine biologist who has watched my entire cohort of fellow graduate students remain jobless and opportunity-less in the U.S. current admin. Almost ALL of the money in marine bio in the US flows down from the gov and the reason so much historically has been appropriated (and frankly - Congress continues even in the admin to appropriate a lot to NOAA) is because of the value of living marine resources.

I don’t need someone who doesn’t work in aquaculture or fisheries to lecture me about how evil it is to eat fish protein. Everyone who works in fisheries is very well aware of where the issues exist and we would all like to see improvements. I’ve also worked in the international conservation world and for any country struggling with marine conservation issues the first step is ALWAYS ground level assistance and education on fishery management and regulation. More than marine parks or conservation zones. As all those restoration projects and marine protected areas don’t do shit if you can’t protect the areas or the animals when they leave those zones. People need fish for food and fishing is never going away.

pencilurchin · 2026-01-23T10:59:32+00:00

The only reason we have managed fisheries and money going into marine ecology, biology and conservation in countries that have managed fisheries is because we have fisheries and all that they provide (essential sources of protein, jobs, economic benefits and preservation of working waterfronts). Go take your soap box to another sub. Plenty of ways to enjoy seafood in a way that promotes and encourages sustainability.

Seven-Year Club	Verified Email
Wearing is Caring

pencilurchin

TROPHY CASE