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Getting Involved

 
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About me

The word “charism” can have a variety of meanings. In all of them, though, charism refers to the spiritual graces and qualifications granted to every Christian to perform his or her own task in the Church. That’s right, God gave you special qualities just so that you could do his work through the Church!

When you get involved with a group like DignityHouston, God gives you an open invitation to take that charism and put it to use. Whether you enjoy an ability to write, to take pictures, to record movies, to sew, to make computers do wonderful things, no matter what, your charism is there for you to use. On this page, we list a variety of opportunities to use your charism, but don’t feel limited by them. If you have other ideas, we’d like to hear about them!

While we’d like you to join DignityHouston, most of these don’t require that you be a member. The few that do contain a notation to that effect.

So, please take a moment to let us know how you’d like to make the most of your charism. Check off all those that interest you, and we’ll give you a call to discuss how you can be a part of us. By the way, for those of you just starting out, this is also a great way to amass work experience for your résumé.

Membership required. We’re always in need to leaders who are willing to work hard to make DignityHouston more than it already is. Please see Our Board of Trustees for the job descriptions and work involved. We generally elect Trustees once a year but make opportunities for you to attend Board Meetings and work on Board projects throughout the year so you can find out if Board membership is for you.
We’re hard at work attempting to document the history of DignityHouston from its inception in 1974 to the present. A lot of talents are required, ranging from making videos of members experiences, to scanning, organizing, and describing photograph galleries, to researching all kinds of resources, online and otherwise. We offer some of these opportunities elsewhere in this list, but we also need people with the kind of leadership and organizational skills to run the whole project.
Want to make movies? We’ve got the equipment! We’d like to have videos made of all our members, especially the older members, describing what it has been like coming out, what the acceptance level of society has been, what kinds of things DignityHouston has done — you name it! You’ll need the skills with focus, image balance, framing the scene, and such to make a good video, but you’ll also likely need the interviewing skills. Or perhaps you don’t have a knack for running the camera yourself, but enjoy being the journalist interviewing folks, turning simple rambling into a focused information interchange. Whichever, this may be your cup of tea.
In the day of smartphone cams, getting photographs seems like a simple thing, but it’s really a lot more involved to get it right. As you know, you have to remember to do it, be in the right place at the right time, frame the shot right, try to get the lighting right, and so on. If you like doing that kind of stuff, we need you. On the other hand, perhaps your charism lies in working with the product, cropping it, editing the lighting, even substituting backgrounds! Whatever your charism, we need you!
Few people understand the skills involved in getting a newsletter out every month. Not only do you have to get the articles together, you also have to work with the layout, get the pictures and other illustrations, think about hyperlinks, figure out how to get reader engagement, and on and on. And you’ve got to manage the whole thing so that you’re planning the next month’s newsletter as you’re producing the month’s work of art.
Great Web sites don’t just happen. They’re build within the constraints of hosting, HTML, CSS, JavaScript and a myriad of other technical considerations, all the while hiding that technical stuff under really engaging, people-oriented content. Then, there’s the bugbear of responsiveness. Whatever you create has to be tested and look right on widescreen, desktop monitors and diminutive (by comparison) smartphones. It’s a lot to ask from anyone, and if you’ve got the skills or the aptitude to learn about such things, DignityHouston could sure use your charism.
The world isn’t all smartphones and Web sites. Brochures, flyers, booklets and such still have their place when it comes to educating and informing the public and our members. Graphic design and layout, as well as content development, is a valuable experience in the world today. If you’ve got the skills or want to get experience using that charism, let us know!
From time-to-time, we need to conduct a coordinated publicity campaign. It may be that we need to respond to some event in the Church or the Federal government. It may be that we decide to designate a period of time for a membership expansion campaign. Whatever the reason, it takes special skills to bring together all the resources and people to work on such a campaign, to plan and strategize what to do and how to measure the results. If that’s your charism, talk to us about it. You’ll make the Holy Spirit proud!
Writing is a generalized skill with a lot of specialties. Writing press releases is one important specialty that requires a lot of practice. Knowing how to write really engaging press releases that pull in media interest is a great skill to develop for your résumé as well as a great way to show off your talents. Of course it blends in well with many of the other options for getting involved. Why don’t you try it out?
Ultimately, DignityHouston is all about spiritual development. It can take all sorts of paths, and different spiritual development paths are needed for all the different people. Some might like a meditation group, others a prayer yoga class, still others a book club/discussion group. How would you like to lead a group that you design and create, your very own spiritual development workshop? Let us know what you’d like to create. We’d love to work on it.
Didn’t see what you really, really want to do in the list. You can’t wait to do … Well that’s likely the Holy Spirit tickling you to wake you up. You don’t want to make her mad! Tell us what you’d like to do. Let’s make it happen together!