Connecticut College Left (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} ccleft) wrote,@ 2007-04-18 23:30:00 |
|
What's Wrong with CCLeft? How do We Fix it Before It's Too Late?
Here's the message that I sent out to everybody on the email list. Much discussion is encouraged.
What’s Wrong with CCLeft? How Do We Fix it Before It’s Too Late?
By Tristan
While I wrote this essay alone, it would not have been possible without an extensive conversation with Iwi.
Comments, questions, suggestions and howls of outrage are all encouraged. While I have put a lot of thought into how to change CCLeft, in no way do I believe that this is the definitive answer to CCLeft’s problems, rather, this is my attempt to start a discussion towards creating solutions.
The meetings in Smith have become progressively smaller, with only a handful people showing up from week to week. Production of SpeakLeft! has sputtered, and now grinds to a halt. Events are planned but never held. Changes to campus policy or culture are suggested, but never followed. Something dreadfully wrong has happened. It is imperative that we not only examine what went wrong, but also begin actively discussing how we want to rebuild CCLeft for next semester. The need for CCLeft has not abated, but CCLeft must change itself in order for it to meet those needs. There are arguably outside conditions that had an adverse effect on CCLeft. But rather than focus on them, we should plan how to change ourselves to meet those challenges. I will discuss what I see as multiple of the internal failures of CCLeft and attempt to suggests changes we make to them.
Conduct During Meetings
Some people talk a lot at meetings, some people don’t. This is true. But everyone should feel comfortable in voicing their concerns during meetings and should not be silenced due to fear. CCLeft has mentioned on multiple occasions for the need of a facilitator, but often they have been ignored due to the small size of the present group. While it is true that often CCLeft meetings have the natural flow of a conversation, this brings the incredible drawback of excluding people from the conversation, a tendency to meander, an inability to stick to an agenda and to lengthen meetings.
The only solution to this is to require a facilitator at a meeting, no matter how small. Also that people give respect to those who are not usually inclined to speak. I would also suggest that an agenda be presented to those gathered prior to the meeting. The agenda would then be modified to the needs of those present.
Nostalgia
The Old Guard knows that 05-06 was a good year for CCLeft. We need to get over this. While it is important that we remember the history of our organization, when we look back we need to make sure that we remember both the good and the bad, both the events and the planning they took. A SDSer that I very much admire, Josh “Brownies” Russell, once gave an excellent metaphor “ A hawk will circle for hours in the air, three or more, before it plunges and attempts to kill its prey. One of the most dangerous things we can do is look back and see only the swoop and not the hours of planning that went into it.” So whenever we think, “Hey, in fall ‘05, we were putting out SpeakLeft! every two weeks!(fortnightly in fact)” we should remember that that did not happen magically. We put out SpeakLeft! that often because people were willing to put in a lot of time and sweat. Nostalgia can also trap us, prevent us from doing something new. I think that nostalgia is the real reason that we have never had a true facilitator in our groups; the number of people there really had nothing to do with it.
Division of Labor
Throughout the year, much of the work for CCLeft has continuously fallen on the same group of people. While continuing to volunteer for tasks is essential, this has had the negative effect of giving a sense of mistrust to new CCLefters and over time it has given the Old Guard CCLefters the feeling that no one else can do the tasks. Tasks given during the meeting, such as secretary, facilitator, etc., are supposed to be rotated but often end up falling on the same people over and over again.
There should be some sort of partnership of Old Guard with New CCLefters to ensure that the young bloods do not have to revisit the failures that the Old Guard knows to avoid. For tasks that integral for each meeting, such as secretary, facilitator, etc., there should either be training offered to everybody at the beginning of the semester so that everybody is comfortable fulfilling the roles or they should be mandated to a single person, like the role of Treasurer currently is. Equality does not prohibit specialization. But we should keep in mind that power might begin to concentrate in roles such as secretary if we do decide to make it a permanent position.
Accountability Outside of Meetings
Over the year, CCLeft has become less of a club and more an association of individuals. The identity of a group, rather than individuals, is important. As we became only individuals, the importance of our tasks was diminished: the purpose of finishing tasks was only to avoid criticism and anger of another member. We should be completing tasks for the purpose of reaching towards a goal that we all, as an organization, agreed on. While people may not necessarily enjoy doing their tasks, they should understand the purpose behind them and how both the organization as a whole and the individual will benefit.
Lack of Discussion
In our meetings and events this year there has been a lack of discussion on both events historical and contemporary, and political theory. This makes no sense; we are a political organization. We should talk about politics and history, we should argue with each other over anarchist, communist, socialist, feminist, anti-racist, queer, environmental issues. None of us know everything and we should foster discussion, not merely plan events. Or if we do only plan events, we should encourage discussion and debate at those events. But I can completely understand people not being interested in returning to CCLeft. They came to a political group that didn’t discuss politics; how incredibly lame is that?
This lack of discussion is probably tied into people not being comfortable in the presence of others. Hopefully once this trust is restored, the discussion will follow.
-Tristan
Here's the message that I sent out to everybody on the email list. Much discussion is encouraged.
What’s Wrong with CCLeft? How Do We Fix it Before It’s Too Late?
By Tristan
While I wrote this essay alone, it would not have been possible without an extensive conversation with Iwi.
Comments, questions, suggestions and howls of outrage are all encouraged. While I have put a lot of thought into how to change CCLeft, in no way do I believe that this is the definitive answer to CCLeft’s problems, rather, this is my attempt to start a discussion towards creating solutions.
The meetings in Smith have become progressively smaller, with only a handful people showing up from week to week. Production of SpeakLeft! has sputtered, and now grinds to a halt. Events are planned but never held. Changes to campus policy or culture are suggested, but never followed. Something dreadfully wrong has happened. It is imperative that we not only examine what went wrong, but also begin actively discussing how we want to rebuild CCLeft for next semester. The need for CCLeft has not abated, but CCLeft must change itself in order for it to meet those needs. There are arguably outside conditions that had an adverse effect on CCLeft. But rather than focus on them, we should plan how to change ourselves to meet those challenges. I will discuss what I see as multiple of the internal failures of CCLeft and attempt to suggests changes we make to them.
Conduct During Meetings
Some people talk a lot at meetings, some people don’t. This is true. But everyone should feel comfortable in voicing their concerns during meetings and should not be silenced due to fear. CCLeft has mentioned on multiple occasions for the need of a facilitator, but often they have been ignored due to the small size of the present group. While it is true that often CCLeft meetings have the natural flow of a conversation, this brings the incredible drawback of excluding people from the conversation, a tendency to meander, an inability to stick to an agenda and to lengthen meetings.
The only solution to this is to require a facilitator at a meeting, no matter how small. Also that people give respect to those who are not usually inclined to speak. I would also suggest that an agenda be presented to those gathered prior to the meeting. The agenda would then be modified to the needs of those present.
Nostalgia
The Old Guard knows that 05-06 was a good year for CCLeft. We need to get over this. While it is important that we remember the history of our organization, when we look back we need to make sure that we remember both the good and the bad, both the events and the planning they took. A SDSer that I very much admire, Josh “Brownies” Russell, once gave an excellent metaphor “ A hawk will circle for hours in the air, three or more, before it plunges and attempts to kill its prey. One of the most dangerous things we can do is look back and see only the swoop and not the hours of planning that went into it.” So whenever we think, “Hey, in fall ‘05, we were putting out SpeakLeft! every two weeks!(fortnightly in fact)” we should remember that that did not happen magically. We put out SpeakLeft! that often because people were willing to put in a lot of time and sweat. Nostalgia can also trap us, prevent us from doing something new. I think that nostalgia is the real reason that we have never had a true facilitator in our groups; the number of people there really had nothing to do with it.
Division of Labor
Throughout the year, much of the work for CCLeft has continuously fallen on the same group of people. While continuing to volunteer for tasks is essential, this has had the negative effect of giving a sense of mistrust to new CCLefters and over time it has given the Old Guard CCLefters the feeling that no one else can do the tasks. Tasks given during the meeting, such as secretary, facilitator, etc., are supposed to be rotated but often end up falling on the same people over and over again.
There should be some sort of partnership of Old Guard with New CCLefters to ensure that the young bloods do not have to revisit the failures that the Old Guard knows to avoid. For tasks that integral for each meeting, such as secretary, facilitator, etc., there should either be training offered to everybody at the beginning of the semester so that everybody is comfortable fulfilling the roles or they should be mandated to a single person, like the role of Treasurer currently is. Equality does not prohibit specialization. But we should keep in mind that power might begin to concentrate in roles such as secretary if we do decide to make it a permanent position.
Accountability Outside of Meetings
Over the year, CCLeft has become less of a club and more an association of individuals. The identity of a group, rather than individuals, is important. As we became only individuals, the importance of our tasks was diminished: the purpose of finishing tasks was only to avoid criticism and anger of another member. We should be completing tasks for the purpose of reaching towards a goal that we all, as an organization, agreed on. While people may not necessarily enjoy doing their tasks, they should understand the purpose behind them and how both the organization as a whole and the individual will benefit.
Lack of Discussion
In our meetings and events this year there has been a lack of discussion on both events historical and contemporary, and political theory. This makes no sense; we are a political organization. We should talk about politics and history, we should argue with each other over anarchist, communist, socialist, feminist, anti-racist, queer, environmental issues. None of us know everything and we should foster discussion, not merely plan events. Or if we do only plan events, we should encourage discussion and debate at those events. But I can completely understand people not being interested in returning to CCLeft. They came to a political group that didn’t discuss politics; how incredibly lame is that?
This lack of discussion is probably tied into people not being comfortable in the presence of others. Hopefully once this trust is restored, the discussion will follow.
-Tristan
