Teri has a very smart friend, Susan, who declared "I ought to lighten up and quit being so self-important and so quick to bitch about other people." Yeah, I can see that.
Tonight was our stupid PTO meeting, and in the 4 minutes it took me to drive over there, I pondered Wise Susan's words. My friend Jackie and I chaired that group 4 and 5 years ago, and man, we were good. Our meetings were an hour or less, we accomplished everything we needed to, and everything we wanted to. Membership was up, stress was down - it was a good time. Then our terms were up and everything went to %#@^.
This group frustrates me. I've written, and deleted a dozen reasons this group makes me nuts, and I just shouldn't dwell there. This group is not about me.
So, with Wise Susan's sentiments echoing in the vacuous void that is my head at 6:30 at night, I decided this. I can step up, or I can shut up. I have the capacity to accept that this group is what it is, that despite its multitude of weaknesses it does manage, eventually, to accomplish some part of what it sets out to even though it seems much of the time, the group doesn't even appear to KNOW what it's after. Or I can make this about me.
I think I chose wisely. Next month I'll prepare a report on the fundraising effort that begins Thursday and ends before the next meeting. I'll hand the report off to someone else to present. And Jackie and I will go out for a drink.
5 comments:
There ya go, good plan...let them sink on their own til they beg for help.
Since we moved over the summer, my kids are at school where no one knows me. I spent years on the PTA board at the old school. I know what you are feeling. My biggest shock in the new schools is the size of the budget. Coming from a Title I school with a PTA budget less than 1/5 the size of the budgets at the new schools, I can see a ton of waste.
Anyway, I am taking the lighten up approach at the new schools. I will help where I chose to, but I am not getting in as deep again. At least for a while. I do have 12 years of kids in elementary school left!
We're a Title 1 school too. Our PTO is allowed to do exactly ONE fundraiser, this is it for the year. It would be FABULOUS to be able to tell people I'm pushing to sell, sell sell, what it is they're selling for, but, heh, we coulnd't even come up with that much. But I'll raise their money, I'll do my bit, and pick and choose my level of involvement. I have no kids at this school next year, then another 7 when Daniel starts in 2008. Then middle school, then high school. By June of 2021 I'll be done with the PTO. Yeah, right.
I can step up, or I can shut up.
Better be careful, it was this kind of thinking that got me in the Vice President position!
Yeah, I'm gonna go the other way. ;o)
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