Often those who are employed elsewhere will make an effort to show up on weekends or after work to do their volunteer work if they are encouraged. Sandy

We only have day-time classes which makes it difficult for those that work full time. We've tried to get an evening class scheduled, but nothing so far.

And yes, our members are mostly middle aged women that are either retired or semi-retired.

in most states the extension agent is already overworked. They are also expected to be at work during work hours...8-5

So any after hours programming is on top of their regular time. this is a lot to ask of anyone. Particularly if they have a family. I understand the desire for evenings and weekends, but it is generally too much to ask, (Many Extensions dont have comp. time policies)

Plus in many areas it is hard to get enough evening and weekend participation to make it worth the extra effort.

Paul is right, sad to say. Our agent is very overworked and I, for one try very hard not to take advantage. With the upcoming budget restrictions my guess is that is going to be getting worse. In our group there are a few people who are able to take over MG responsibilities and go for it without stepping over the line, although there are others who get annoyed at the roles they juggle not realizing that these people are carrying out the instructions of the agent. Since I hate telling other people what to do and what they can't do, I have a lot of admiration for their being able to handle the job and the criticism. I'm sure these people are few and far between and not every MG group has that advantage. Sandy

I would have thought that the agent was overworked enough too, but had trouble getting a daytime class scheduled. Ideally there would be one for a weekday morning and one for the evening/Saturday group and rotate them - but that rarely happens.
One argument that I have come across regarding day courses is the lack of good presenters for the topics - specifically soils/bugs etc which are generally taken by the agent themselves or another agent and they are too busy during the day to commit to the idea.

People who work hours like 2 PM to 10 PM cannot attend "evening classes" and often people who work the 10 PM and later shift won't either, but they would come in for a morning class. Before setting times try to find out about your target audience and establish class times that meet their needs. Too many people that work 9 to 5 forget there is a whole lot of people out there to meet their evening hour needs that cannot attend classes between 6 PM and 10 PM.

Heard you speak in Hendricks County before you moved. Our agent trys to alternate - days one year, then nights the next. We have a good cross section - some retired and lots of employed full time. Most of our activities are in the evening and on weekends, that is the only time most can come. We sometimes have people attend the night class that come from neighboring counties that only offer during the day. Our entire board and most active MG are employed full time. We work toward our goal and have fun!!

Our program has changed in the past year or so to allow the Master Gardeners themselves to run it, and so far seems to be going very well. It is still offered through the extension service, but doing it like this made it possible to keep going (mostly funding was an issue). We have a day and evening class, and the statistics of the types of people in them seems to be accurate to what was described. I don't know about the volunteer hours though, as I am not involved with tallying those. I do know there are a lot of weekend projects that people participate in and that at least 40 hours of volunteer service a year are required for a person to keep the Master Gardener status.

Our classes are one day a week 9-4. with extra classes on the weekends or in the evenings. my mentor told me that the first year we wont even have time to work in our own gardens because we will be putting in the volunteer hours. I work in a wholesale garden nursary and have 4 kids and it's killing me to try to keep up with everything, I can't imagine how everyone does it. Our class is a mix of every age. some very young to very old. do you all have to take the required two pruning classes on top of the regular ones? I am going for master composter also and thats two extra days of classes, at least the 20 volunteer hours adds into the 66 hours for the MG.