If anybody has any advice about this, I'd definitely appreciate it.
I'm on the fence. I'm going to have to make a decision sometime between now and next weekend about whether or not to withdraw an offer of volunteer services to a non-profit organization. The organization involved has some electronic equipment that's been acting up intermittently. I knew a few months ago that I'd be in the area next weekend and had the Sunday free so I offered to bring along my portable tool kit, a function generator, a scope, a meter or two, and some other goodies that they don't have and take a crack at it and teach anybody interested how to use the test equipment at the same time. The response was enthusiastic initially but then petered out to luke warm as people dropped out with a bunch of "can't make it" and in some cases, messages that went unreturned. So I'm thinking of calling it off since it would be me plus one other person I don't know.
What bothers me, from having dealt with organizations like this one about 15-20 years ago, is that they're the first to rip shreds out of people about how they're volunteer-run, availability of resources is scarce, blah blah blah before demanding free money (it's called a donation and it's mandatory) and free work, but then when it's on offer, refuse to meet halfway on it - but then complain bitterly later that they didn't get any volunteer work. And my availability to do volunteer work is limited too so I understand that. Between shift work and a finite amount of vacation that I have every year and other stuff that I do and normal life in general, there's limited windows of opportunity for me to pack up a bunch of equipment from my home work shop, drive for a day out of country, have meaningful time to dig into what needs to be worked on, pack back up and head back home, cross the border a second time on the return trip, then get everything put back in my workshop at home so rolling all that into another trip works well for me. Yet nobody local to the area was willing to commit to the Sunday with me so I'm thinking of withdrawing the offer of assistance and putting the kibosh on the idea and making it a straight up vacation. It would certainly simplify the packing and travel. But I don't want to hear any shit later about how "I don't do enough" when nobody's willing to meet me halfway on anything to make it happen. I went around this block close to 20 years ago and walked away from this crap. I thought I'd like to get involved again but with the way things are looking, I'm thinking about walking away again but am having trouble making up my mind and I'm far from certain on how to best handle the situation, hence the request for advice. Any thoughts would be appreciated.