Ideally, plans will work. Ideally, people will respond as they should and with the right level of participation. Ideally…
But there tends to be problems & issues…
What, you’re looking for a list or some sort of description? If you’ve ever were part of an event’s staff to any degree, whether being the one overall in charge or the one showing people where to park, you have some insite into problems and issues an event has. Yet let me be specific as in painting or most likely photocopying the events schedule.
Planning Events is…
- Discovering and knowing your calendar limits
- A pain with scheduling across everyone’s calendars
- Creativity on the people resource/HR side of things
- Creativity with budget
- Creativity with material resources
- Booking event location
- Planning meetings and endless communications
- De ligation & sub-delegation
- Publications, permission slips, advertising…
- Constantly trying to figure out if you forgot something
- Figuring out how to make things work when resources are limited or problems happen.
- This list can go on forever, since planning seems to be a constant state of mind…
Why bother carbon copying?!
We all like to get a routine and pattern down pat, so we can build a reliable set of expectations. In ministries, such as Royal Rangers, you can pretty much expect there to be the same series of events every year, around the same time each year. Usually this time of year, May-July, is when the calendar of events is being finalized for the next calendar year in all the ministries in the district, including Royal Rangers.
That makes it hard to make changes, doesn’t it? Yes it does. That’s likely the reason we’re planning to repeat events next year that haven’t even happened yet this year. What if we need to make big or small changes? It becomes an administrative nightmare. Add on that the procrastination factor and the nightmare worsens.
Why ReInvent the Wheel?
Pure linear planning, as in having a set of events, then having them re-occur every year, fitting into the available spots of the schedule of events, is dangerous, though that’s how things work. In my super analytical mind, I am always engineering and reverse-engineering things. With events, you have build around the bottom line and constantly re-construct them to fit the needs of that bottom line.
For instance, there is a lot of bridge re-construction going on nearby where I live in the Philly suburbs. One bridge I am on every day I work right now is being partially taken apart and put back together. Sure they could close those bridges down, get the bridge re-construction done quicker, yet the impact would be significant for miles around, where I live in some of the heaviest traffic spots in PA. The other alternative is do no reconstruction and the bridge collapses, likely killing/injuring people.
I recently did a post that generally addresses the problem of events we call “Powwow” in Royal Rangers. Powwow has generally been the same in its 40+ years of history, yet I’m sure there have been micro changes too. My observation is that on the section and district levels it has been a “Ranger Kids Field Day“, with generally the same type of scouty activities and weekend long overnight camping. Makes it sound like I’m out to bash that, which is partially the case, yet if that’s the very definition of “Powwow“, then it is what it is.
Zooming out…
So in ministry, is the event a containing shell, from where within that containing shell the very purpose of that event is met? In a non-ministry context, if you go to a concert, the purpose then is the viewing the concert performance. If a sporting event, it is about watching the game. Get the point?
So forget your scheduling constraints for a moment and start with a fresh calendar with no marks on it. Now think of what your ministry’s objectives are, its focus, its goals, etc, etc. Now instead of marking the calendar with events, how about marking it with goal setting, kind of like what an athlete does.
On the Outpost level, in any age group I have lead, I’ve set goals and objective for the boys I am working with. I know their background, where they are, and generally where they need to be heading. So after knowing where they need to head, I plan things with the group accordingly. Like this year, I’ve planned for trail events this summer, building things up, and then actually doing them this summer.
The stumbling point in planning is that it is often done backwards… done from the higher levels on down to the local levels. In an ideal world of planning, you’d have administrative leaders on the local levels who do what I just described I did on the Outpost level, then pass on our feedback to the next levels up. Everyone on all levels chews on this feedback, then develops events on all levels to fit the needs of the ministry network.
Instead we repeat the mistake of cramming the calendar of events, go through the planning cycles (from proactivity to crisis), bum rush to staff/run these events, and bum rush to fill the event with participants. On top of that we put the “God cherry on top“, which I know has got to anger God, since we’re not using the head God has given us.
As for what events…
I can tell you and will likely tell you in other posts what we should be doing for events, both now and into the future. But like I said, even when I’m not on staff, I’m still constantly engineering and reverse-engineering all this administrative stuff. Beside that, the point made in this post is about the approach to planning, which comes from the base and works its way up. Trust me, I’ve made a lot of great plans over the years, even this summer, yet all that planning is a waste of time if you are not in tune with the people you are serving.
So, let’s reThink all of this before we dare either fall back into routine and/or try to reinvent the wheel. Use that head God gave you!
P.S. - Yes, this was a mind dump, yet a good one I think. I see some good things forming from these recent thoughts & rants… More to come…
Image credit: “The Ongoing Adventures of ASBO Jesus” [http://asbojesus.wordpress.com]
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