Community+Events+Synthesis

Samantha Dilday Prof Wagner NCLC 203 March 6, 2011 Community Events Synthesis Paper For my community events, I participated in an event called Pilots n’ Paws and went to multiple meetings for organizations such as the Aviation Club, Book Club and Girl Scouts. Though each of my community events were very different, they did share similar themes. In both the Aviation Club meeting and the Pilots n’ Paws meeting, the leaders of the group had to have specific knowledge to make the meeting run smoothly. Professor Mike Young and the president of Aviation Club, Conor Dancy, both had to be well education in aviation to have any hope of having the meeting be informative. Professor Mike knew how to make flight plans and read weather maps while Conor was able to make decisions for the club and what needed to get done. In both of these cases, the knowledge to understand what is happening is very privileged to those who understand aviation. In both the Book Club meeting at my local library and my Girl Scout troop meetings the members and leaders of the events try to make a difference in their community. Nancy Eggers, the president of the Book Club, tried to develop fundraising opportunity to help out her community by raising money to pay for the groups needs. Also in my Girl Scout troop meetings, we try to organize events to help younger Girl Scouts and also events that could help out our community. Nancy was very effective in getting people engaged in conversation because of her positive attitude and willingness to listen to other’s ideas. The leaders in my Girl Scout troop help to get the other girls engaged by letting us decided on what happens and what events we want to plan. They leave the decision making up to us which makes us more willing to work when we are working towards a goal that we came up with. In each of the events I attended there was a sense of helping the community. But one events definition of community was complete different from that of another. During the Pilots n’ Paws events that I took apart in, the “community” that I was helping was that of the SPCA and the family that had adopted the dogs. Yet the community that I was helping during my Girl Scout meetings was that of the Girl Scout community which consisted of younger girls and leaders. The meaning of community is different between each organization and just because one organizations community is smaller than another doesn’t mean it is any less important. I also learned that there are different levels to the community for each organization. In the Book Club meeting I learned that one level of community would be just those in the club while another level of community might be members of the public library. Each level of community has specific needs and wants. While the wants of the organizations members might be one thing, the wants of the larger community might be completely different. I know that in the Aviation Club many of the members would love to learn more about flying and some even want to learn the ground schools. Yet we also want to get others that aren’t in the Aviation Club involved so we do events such as Flight Days that allow those interested in aviation to fly for half an hour. People that aren’t in the club might not be interested in knowing the facts about aviation but when you tell them they could fly a plane for a few bucks then they would jump at the opportunity to join the club. Many organizations have to keep in mind the different people they are trying to get to join. That’s why many of the organizations meetings I’ve been to ask questions like how could they improve or how could they make things more interesting for others. In the Book Club, Nancy explained that they try to change up the type of book they read each time so it’s not just leaning towards one specific type of person. Also in Girl Scouts, when we decide to organize events for the younger girls, we always try to talk to other troop leaders to see what the girls might be interested in. It’s up to the organization to gather the information to needed to make the meetings more interesting to others outside of the group. Also many organizations try to find out what the community needs by talking to individuals of specific organizations. During the Pilots n’ Paws event, we had to talk to both the SPCA to see what they needed from us and also we talked to individual families to see what they wanted. We tried to pair up the right dogs to the right family based on both of their needs. In Girl Scouts, we also do volunteer events where we clean up a park or organize a fundraiser for a specific purpose in the community. Yet we don’t just jump right in; we talk to leaders and research what the community needs at the time. Through my community events I have learned how community is different to each organization. I also learned that planning and talking to others in key to making an organization run smoothly. There also should be leaders that are willing to teach and to listen to others and take in new ideas. Each event taught me the importance of roles in an organization. These community events helped me understand varies communities and the organizations that help them.