AN OPEN LETTER TO FUTURE KEY CLUB OFFICERS WHO DO NOT UNDERSTAND THE MEANING OF BEING OFFICERS

Are you truly a Key Club officer if you don’t know about the Kiwanis Family? Are you truly an officer if you are not up-to-date with the club’s plans?

Dear Key Club officer,

Why did you run for a position again? Oh right, you needed something to put down on your college application. All you need to do is to perform your officer duties so the President won’t give you a lecture, right? Let me make the problem clear: You are taking your officer position for granted.

You always hear people say, “If you run for an officer position, you’ll gain leadership skills and become a better person”

If you don’t perform duties, or attend meetings, then it’s obvious you’re not going to learn anything. But what about those officers who DO FULFILL all their jobs BUT NEVER volunteer to perform a task outside their job unless told to. They come to ALL board meetings, but NEVER share a single thought unless called on. They come to general club meetings, but NEVER made an effort to meet new club members. You tell me, are they really going to develop leadership skills?

My point is: If you’re not taking initiative, you are not going to develop leadership skills.

Oh wait, you must be thinking: Must I really do something beyond my officer duties? My life’s already piled up with SATs, ACTs, AP classes, and other extracurricular. I can’t focus on Key Club twenty-four seven.

I‘m not asking and I don’t want you to waste all your time on Key Club. I want you to take a chance whenever you can. For example, when I was secretary during junior year, I would go up to new members and get to know them during volunteer events. I’m not wasting any time; I just took an extra step by using those hours to build up my social skills and confidence by talking to others. I also remember seeing Tiffany, the Project Coordinator of 2015–2016, doing tasks that aren’t part of her role. She created cheer chants for our club and presented to the members. With her initiation, she boosted her creativity skills and confidence.

People usually ask me, “Why are you working so hard for the club? Why don’t you assign tasks to your officers sometimes?”

I did; I did assigned tasks. But sometimes, they just don’t want to do them. And if they do, they don’t do it with right mentality. They always think, “I just want to read off this report and get it over with.”

It’s never the opposite thought, “If I read practice reading the report with hand gestures and the right tone, my speech skills will improve.”

So why did I work hard? It’s because Key Club is my driven to learning more and becoming a better person. No matter how challenging or how much work I had, I always tell myself, it will help in the long run. And it did.

For example, last year as President, I had to book hotel rooms for our biggest annual event. It wasn’t the usual “call the hotel and book it” kind of procedure. I had to collaborate with another school, work and get approvals from both my school and Kiwanis advisers. Therefore, I had to do a lot of phone callings and communication. Back then, I dreaded making phone calls in a professional setting because it was hard for me to improvise my questions and responses. To fix this problem, I spent around 15 minutes typing a script of a potential dialogue before the phone call.

But now, as a college student at UC Davis, I am different. These past weeks, I’ve been searching through several apartments for housing the next school year. I still made phone calls to ask for room availability, tour availability, and other information, but this time, there was no script involved. Instead, I improvised. I already had enough practice from last years’ experiences to gain enough confidence and skills to engage in phone calls.

Although I needed to perform only secretary tasks as secretary during junior year, I didn’t mind working on something different. One day, during a board meeting, the club was discussing about Eliminate Week. I raised my hand and suggested an idea that I would do by myself: a flyer of the week. At that time, I had no experiences on graphics, but I was eager to play around with Microsoft Word and Paint. This is what I came up with.

This poster may not look appealing to you, but at that time, I was very satisfied with the outcome. I continued to play with Microsoft Word during my free time, and eventually built up my skills. The next year, I made another flyer, and here’s the improvement:

Because I took an initiative to learn something new, yet challenging, I was able to develop a new skill that might help me later in the future. Last quarter, for my “Intro to Biomedical Engineering” course, my partner and I had to make a poster for a device we made. With the past experiences with graphics, we were able to create one within a couple days. Here’s our finished product:

Some club officers just don’t understand how a club can have the amazing power to change a person. They don’t see how little efforts and initiation can help them become more well-rounded and developed.

And even if you do see it, the key to succeeding depends on YOU and YOUR INITIATION. Next time when the President openly assigns a task, volunteer to take it. Next time when you see a member working alone during a volunteering shift, go introduce yourself. Take this opportunity of being an officer and make use of it because it is only a one time deal. It’s an opportunity you will appreciate later in the future.

Sincerely,

Julie Ling

President of Evergreen Valley Key Club 2014–2015