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Central Point Senior Center falters with volunteer-staff rift By BUFFY POLLOCK for the Mail Tribune CENTRAL POINT - A small band of "grouchy" volunteers at the Senior Center has soured morale enough that both the longtime manager and her replacement resigned in the same month, staff and board members said. After about 15 years helping out at the center, Ora Corliss resigned as manager earlier this month over what she called "issues between volunteers and staff." But she agreed to stay on in a lesser capacity as secretary/ treasurer. When the situation failed to improve, Corliss said, she decided it was time to leave altogether. "There were some problems we couldn't resolve and I felt it was best I just resign," she said. "Things that shouldn't have been being done and I couldn't straighten them out." Her replacement, volunteer Nikki McDowell, resigned less than a week after being appointed and left the same day as Corliss. Though McDowell was unavailable for comment, Corliss said she felt they both resigned for similar reasons. "They (the volunteers) set out to run her (McDowell) off and they finally did," Corliss said. "She (McDowell) had started the quilting guild and she had a lot of good ideas, but they wouldn't have it. Now the quilters won't even come back. You just have to keep a place friendly," she said. Board member Orlin Bartholomew agreed that the problems at the center seemed to revolve around a small number of the volunteers. "They've been so dedicated, but at the same time have become so grouchy. I'm 82 but I'm not grouchy yet," he said with a laugh. "I had an emergency meeting and told everyone that we need to learn to get along. I'm hoping we can still make a go of it." While a new center manager likely will not be hired until after the first of the year, Bartholomew said he hoped the prospect of attaching a small salary to the position would help entice someone in. "Everything is tied up except the food delivery right now. We have a January 10 meeting with COG (Rogue Valley Council of Governments, which manages the center's food services) and we're running an ad," he said. "If we're lucky enough to get somebody, it would be volunteer for awhile. We do want to pay them because it's a lot of responsibility, but it would be down the road a ways before we'd be able to offer a salary of any sort. They'd have to do it for a while because they liked it." City Council member Dick Halley, liaison to the Senior Center, said his concern was for the dwindling numbers of meals being served, something he felt was also related to morale at the center. While a large number of meals provided by the Food & Friends program (administered by RVCOG) are delivered to homebound clients, Halley said, "a dozen on a good day" had replaced the more than 50 seniors who used to eat lunch on site less than six years ago. "I helped build this thing from scratch in the mid- to late '80s," Halley said. "It has to be there. It's just getting the right people to run it." The right person, said Bartholomew, will be someone with a good knowledge of bookkeeping, organizational skills, knowledge of banking and insurance and some good people skills. For more information, call the center at 664-4933. Buffy Pollock is a free-lance writer living in Medford. E-mail her at [email protected] . Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.