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The Series
Meeting: Practical Ways the Leader and Applicant Can Work Together
Jeanette Wachtel
Carmel, Indiana, USA
From: LEAVEN, Vol. 35, No. 4, August-September 1999 p. 80
Congratulations, there's
a Leader Applicant in your Group! You're eager to take an active role
in helping her prepare for leadership and you want to know more about
how you can help. Reading Chapter 5, "Helping Mothers Become Leaders,"
in the LEADER'S HANDBOOK 1998 edition, is a good place to start. This
chapter includes the five basic Leader responsibilities on page 229.
The responsibilities begin
with planning and leading the monthly Series Meetings. That's a place
you and the Applicant can begin, too. Let's look at some ways you can
combine the important responsibilities of leading meetings and helping
mothers prepare for LLL leadership.
Applicants Can Attend
Planning Meetings
Do you and your co-Leaders
meet to discuss Group activities and upcoming events as well as coordinate
the Series Meetings? Many Leaders have found that Planning/Evaluation
Meetings enhance camaraderie while they help organize Group responsibilities.
If you don't have Planning Meetings, now may be a good time to try them.
Invite the Leader Applicant to attend and help. She will see how Leaders
work together to keep Group work manageable and learn what is involved
in planning a Series Meeting.
An Applicant can contribute
fresh perspectives and ideas. This participation can reinforce her enthusiasm
to work on her application. At these meetings, Leaders and Applicants
can enhance their working relationship.
Applicants Can Help Plan
Series Meetings
Working with a Leader to
plan a Series Meeting has several benefits for a Leader Applicant. When
helping plan a meeting, an Applicant will discover that it isn't necessary
for Leaders to keep track of everything in their heads or come up with
a meeting format on their own. Looking through the meeting guides in
the LEADER'S HANDBOOK will help her become familiar with this valuable
resource. Helping choose the meeting focus and introduction, as well
as the opening and follow-up questions will give her opportunities to
explore other available resources for ideas and information. You can
talk about tailoring a meeting plan to participants' interests and needs
(perhaps making more than one plan), anticipating the kinds of questions
and comments that may come up during the discussion, perhaps even creating
visuals that can help make information more meaningful.
Working together provides
opportunities for the Leader and Applicant to learn from each other
while increasing a Leader Applicant's confidence. The Leader Applicant
can contribute to discussions about upcoming Series Meetings by offering
insights from observations at previous meetings. Together you can develop
plans to deal with challenges to Group dynamics, such as handling side
conversations or noisy toddlers and children.
Applicants Can Practice
Leader skills
When an Applicant helps plan
a Series Meeting, she can prepare a few thoughts or pieces of information
to share during the discussion if needed. She will also come to understand
why the Leader chooses certain topics and begin to help keep the conversation
on track. An Applicant can also practice sharing information and options
rather than relating personal experiences, an important step in developing
effective leadership skills.
The Leader Applicant who
is thoroughly familiar with the Group Library can highlight this valuable
resource by recommending books relevant to the discussion topic as well
as pointing mothers to LLL reading materials after the meeting.
Applicants Can Practice
Communication Skills
The Applicant can be aware
of mothers' body language and facial expressions and take note of how
the Leader responds to them. She can also put her HRE skills to use,
helping with challenges at Series Meetings. If side conversations are
a concern, the Applicant can seat herself next to the mother and gently
direct her conversation back to the discussion or ask if she'd like
to share her insights with the whole Group. An Applicant can help offer
other points of view if a mother is very vocal about her choices.
There are many aspects involved
in leading meetings, and a Leader Applicant may feel more comfortable
with some than others. Attending regular Planning Meetings can help
her identify the skills necessary for leading effective Series Meetings.
Participating in Series Meetings gives her the opportunity to practice
those skills. Working together, the Leader and Applicant can design
and conduct productive, successful meetings.
Lucky is the Leader who works
with an Applicant and lucky is the Applicant who works with a Leader
from whom she can learn effective leading methods in a practical setting.
Page last edited Sun Oct 14 09:31:22 UTC 2007.
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