What do we learn when we take off the Red Epaulets? Part -1-

It was July 1991 that I terminated my officership and began a new life that I was ill equipped for. When you have been a Corps Officer for nearly 20 years, with a couple of stints in PR; you are well qualified to be an Officer, but in my case felt that my effective working life was over. However, I believe that I had an advantage in that for the last few years of my officership I had read the Saturday Melbourne Age classifieds and actually circled jobs I thought that I could do. My motivation at the time had nothing to do with looking for a job, but I wanted to prove to myself that I had value that the world might recognize to give to the Army. Being an officer at times felt like being in a Truman like existence where I had little connection with my people in the real world; I did not have to relate to the world in any significant fashion, I did not understand what the pressures they were under and I had contact with a few fellow officers who I perceived were taking advantage of this secure, lifetime existence that would take them through to retirement and beyond without too much effort on their part.

The result was that when I left I sat for two months in a men’s shelter pondering the meaning of life and not coming up with too many answers.

It has been 18 years since that sad event took place and I am at times haunted by the ‘what if’s’, and the thoughts about what I could have been and where life would have taken me; but it is as we all know a fruitless exercise that leads to some very dark places. As I sit here this morning am tempted to ruminate on what has become of ‘Fletch’ as I have become affectionately known to some and dismissively known to others; what have I learned, what difference have I made in people’s lives and what is to become of me.

When I left I was given the opportunity to be a promotion officer for the Uniting Church and this gave me the opportunity to visit local congregations to promote the wider work of the church and assist them in their stewardship and fundraising activities; this led on to a career in professional fundraising and I have had a fantastic time. Incidentally most of the fundraising principles that I have come across are based in the scriptures and yet most churches look at stewardship (fundraising) I such a legalistic and negative way that it is scary in the extreme. I have been involved in this profession in three countries now and taught and spoken at conferences around the world; it has been an exciting adventure.

However, over recent years I have found that there has developed almost an arrogance in some areas over some aspects of the profession where it is all about facts and process. “This is how it is done and you need to be able to tick all these boxes to say that you can do it’. I have felt for a long time that so many organizations want to know ‘what have you done?’ ‘How much Money have you raised?’ And ‘what is the biggest gift that you have achieved?’ My take on this is the same as It was when I was an officer Fundraising is more about people than it is about money. As an officer my take on this was that Officership is not about theology, or practice, or commitment or the verities of Salvationism; it’s about people.

Peter Fletcher
Former Officer
Australia