“Sorry, tonight I can’t make it…”
Contributed by Rtr Harnniann
They say Rotaract gives you opportunity to be trained as good leader. It certainly does.
Throughout my experience as president of the club and organizer of various club activities, one common challenge that will always recur and must be handled with great wisdom is when you suddenly receive a phone call or sms from your members that he (or she or sometime they) could not attend the activity you have spent so much efforts organizing although they have promised earlier they would come.
For example, you are given a task to organize a talk on “Crime Prevention”. To make sure that the talk is a success and beneficial to the members, you want to get the best speakers. So you approach the police officers, the politician, the lawyers etc. Graciously and with a bit of luck, you get your speakers ready to come to give an interesting talk.
But, without the audience, you can’t have a talk. So you proudly announce the date, venue and time of the talk during club meeting and also through emails, blogs, phone call and sms.
You have to do headcount, right? After promoting the talk numerous times to your members, you finally have 11 names confirmed coming for the talk. Great! 11 is nothing to shout about but at least better than single digit.
Then, there come the faithful day. In the morning, you call up the speakers to remind them of the talk and make sure they know how to get to there. You double check whether everything is in order. The banners, the projector, the MC, the tables and chairs etc. You go through your checklist again and again to make sure you do not miss out anything.
But just when you think everything is perfectly planned out, you receive an email from Rtr ABC informing you that she could not make it tonight as she has to bring mother to see a doctor. Ok, how can you reject such excuse? So you still have 10 left. Not too bad, still a double digit.
3 hours before the talk, Rtr DEF sent you a sms which read as follows:-
“dear OC, sorilar… forget tonight have tuition. really cant come. Hope you all enjoy the talk”
Your heart sinks to the bottom of the ocean when you read this sms yet Rtr DEF expects you to enjoy the talk. Now your audience dropped to single digit: 9!
You are panic and take nothing for granted. You start calling the remaining 9 one by one to make sure they all come.
The 1st to the 8th rotaractors tell you they are coming, don’t worry. Woosh! So far so good.
But when you call the 9th rotaractor, Rtr GHI, he said, “Har? Tonight meh? I thought next week mar? Tonight cannot woo… tonight I have to finish my assignment, due date coming soon… why you call me so late?” Ok, now you are being blamed.
8! You only have 8 left… you look at the list of speakers and start cursing yourself, “Why I invite this Dato… that YB to come to give talk?!!” Now this Dato, YB, Tuan, have to travel all the way to Klang just to give a “small” talk to a group of 8?!
You decide you must do something about it, urgently.
You check your phone directory and start calling the members one by one, hoping for miracle.
“Huh? I thought I told you I won’t be coming already mah?”
“Really cannot leh… you try calling other people lar…”
“Still in office lar… by the time I go back, the talk finish liao lor…”
Now your heart break into million of pieces. You question and blame yourself why take up this post as organizer of this talk… it was so not worth it…
You call your president or advisor to tell him/her about your predicament.
“boy… that’s part of the training. Get used to it and you will grow up faster and stronger” they replied.
Throughout my experience as president of the club and organizer of various club activities, one common challenge that will always recur and must be handled with great wisdom is when you suddenly receive a phone call or sms from your members that he (or she or sometime they) could not attend the activity you have spent so much efforts organizing although they have promised earlier they would come.
For example, you are given a task to organize a talk on “Crime Prevention”. To make sure that the talk is a success and beneficial to the members, you want to get the best speakers. So you approach the police officers, the politician, the lawyers etc. Graciously and with a bit of luck, you get your speakers ready to come to give an interesting talk.
But, without the audience, you can’t have a talk. So you proudly announce the date, venue and time of the talk during club meeting and also through emails, blogs, phone call and sms.
You have to do headcount, right? After promoting the talk numerous times to your members, you finally have 11 names confirmed coming for the talk. Great! 11 is nothing to shout about but at least better than single digit.
Then, there come the faithful day. In the morning, you call up the speakers to remind them of the talk and make sure they know how to get to there. You double check whether everything is in order. The banners, the projector, the MC, the tables and chairs etc. You go through your checklist again and again to make sure you do not miss out anything.
But just when you think everything is perfectly planned out, you receive an email from Rtr ABC informing you that she could not make it tonight as she has to bring mother to see a doctor. Ok, how can you reject such excuse? So you still have 10 left. Not too bad, still a double digit.
3 hours before the talk, Rtr DEF sent you a sms which read as follows:-
“dear OC, sorilar… forget tonight have tuition. really cant come. Hope you all enjoy the talk”
Your heart sinks to the bottom of the ocean when you read this sms yet Rtr DEF expects you to enjoy the talk. Now your audience dropped to single digit: 9!
You are panic and take nothing for granted. You start calling the remaining 9 one by one to make sure they all come.
The 1st to the 8th rotaractors tell you they are coming, don’t worry. Woosh! So far so good.
But when you call the 9th rotaractor, Rtr GHI, he said, “Har? Tonight meh? I thought next week mar? Tonight cannot woo… tonight I have to finish my assignment, due date coming soon… why you call me so late?” Ok, now you are being blamed.
8! You only have 8 left… you look at the list of speakers and start cursing yourself, “Why I invite this Dato… that YB to come to give talk?!!” Now this Dato, YB, Tuan, have to travel all the way to Klang just to give a “small” talk to a group of 8?!
You decide you must do something about it, urgently.
You check your phone directory and start calling the members one by one, hoping for miracle.
“Huh? I thought I told you I won’t be coming already mah?”
“Really cannot leh… you try calling other people lar…”
“Still in office lar… by the time I go back, the talk finish liao lor…”
Now your heart break into million of pieces. You question and blame yourself why take up this post as organizer of this talk… it was so not worth it…
You call your president or advisor to tell him/her about your predicament.
“boy… that’s part of the training. Get used to it and you will grow up faster and stronger” they replied.
Vaguely, you hear Alanis Morissette sings,
“You live you learn
You love you learn
You cry you learn
You lose you learn
You bleed you learn
You scream you learn…”
“You live you learn
You love you learn
You cry you learn
You lose you learn
You bleed you learn
You scream you learn…”
posted by harnniann at 6:28 pm
4 Comments:
Dear Harnniann,
Hi, ur article reminds me about my experiences in my old school days when i was part of the drama club
during those days, i had organised once, a drama camp with less than 10 people, the number of persons taking part in the camp is lesser than the committees. as there was one large group consisting 20 people promised by a fren from a drama club in another school who actually "fly kite" at the very last minute.
so during the eve of the camp before fetching our drama teachers from kl at the bus station, the committees are busy calling frens to join ...
but we only managed to find 2 or 3 people the most that night. but i was grateful that i had frens who did not want to join as a member willing to help out for the camp, so i sent those juniors in the committee to be members and asked my frens to take their place..
and i had no choice which i had to order that, those commitees who were not on duty at the particular time has to join the members in classes n in activties to make it a larger group... thank god, we managed to "tahan" till the end and it was a successful camp indeed.
ya, many many bitter experience like club's funds was stolen during the eve of the camp,obstruction by school headmaster in organising or going on with some activities, members hurt during games or activities, complaints from everywhere...
though, i enjoyed alot of those times. thanks for inviting me for the talk, it makes me look back to those old days which were occupied by different club n society's activites...
I really miss those days ...
so, don feel discouraged when u hear someone said "sori, cant make it.." again, u may feel the frustration there n then but once u had finally gone through them, u would get the biggest satisfaction that u had ever had before.
siew yee
Dear Siew Yee,
Thanks for your very well-thought comment. It is long enough to be an article by itself.
Yes, joining club activities means going through alot of heartache and headache.
But I believe that the end result i.e. a successfully executed event, worths all the trouble undertaken.
I was very active in my high school too. Joining rotaract club gives me back the feel and the energy I once had.
Hope you and Alex can spend more time with our club. We welcome you. And thanks for the great talk. We learned alot from you.
Harnniann
Dear Harnniann,
Haha, now only i realise how long my last comments was. Will try to keep it short n sweet this time.
alex is considering joining the parliament visit, will let u know.
n, i will be joining the trip to the orphanage, i supposed, rite?
ya, can feel ur passion.
so, gan ba de!!
regards,
siew yee
Geez... thanks to Siew Yee to break the ice here... I bet all the members that have read this article would freezed for a moment that we have no clue how to response to our dearly PE. Well, at least, that's how I felt initially.
Anyway, Harnniann, I think it's time to reach to the Interactors!
Also, like what SY said, once u get through the stage of rejection, things will look alot lighter! And later when the goals are achieved, everythings will be all worthy. ;D
My salute to the Set-Everything-So-Bloody-Right Past President.
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