The Drama belongs on the stage

I had an experience the past week to attend a school committee meeting in the school district that my kids attend to present a parent perspective on an extracurricular drama program that I have been active with for the past six years. Over several months, this activity involves more than 10-15% of the entire student body and about 40-50 parent volunteers who put in a ton of hours. This school committee tends to set it's sites on this activity just about every year because of what it costs. They only pay for less than 3% of the cost and all of that is staff time for "coaches" and this is less than any sports teams with the same number of student participants. The remaining 70% is raised by parents and students.

I have always had a certain amount of admiration and gratitude for people who are willing to step forward to do the volunteer work of town government. I consider it to be a thankless job that takes a big commitment. There are jerks that sometimes get involved but for the most part the people I know who are involved are committed and good.

But the level of respect I had for a few has been diminished by this experience.
After finishing a presentation directly addressing previously stated questions, identifying that some of the cost was to rent equipment that the school did not have or was in disrepair and me sharing the process and value to participants, the response was that they were taken aback by the "defensiveness" of the presentation.

Huh? You single this activity out from all of the others, you raise pointed questions and requested representatives to present and when they do it is "defensive"?

Then a few refused to acknowledge information right in front of them because it disagreed with what they had set their minds to and a few made statements and open questions looking directly into the camera and also made some insulting and dismissive comments to the group. So riled at one point I did interrupted to point directly to the information a member "couldn't see" I think it was more "wouldn't") and he just dismissed the point. It took all of my restraint not to say more, such as "fuck you" bozo. But sizing up the characters who were clearly playing to the camera , I didn't want to make trouble. So I sat there but I believe those on the panel who saw my body language, got the message. I have no problems with those who just raised questions about clarity and am happy to work with them to make it clearer. But those who made the wisecracks and questioned " transparency"'went beyond reasonable. They wanted to lob cheap shots.

Most know me as being pretty unflappable and very even tempered so my reaction was uncharacteristic. As one in my group said, "when they got you pissed, we knew it was bad".

In the end it was sent to a subgroup, where it should have gone to begin with, and there we will simplify the reports and hopefully put this behind for this year.

So what I took away from this was that perhaps we should find some performance options for some of these drama wannabees so that they can "perform" in a more appropriate venue.

And when I got home, even though it was 10PM, I got out of my "meeting clothes", thew on the sneakers, shorts and T and got out my flashers and headlamp and went out for a 3 mile run up some serious hills.

I am learning that running is good for me putting things in perspective and also burning off adrenalin generated from experiences such as this and I felt much better and could sleep peacefully to deal with this on another day.

Tomorrow I run the 10k Brocktrot a 10k benefit for lung cancer research. Knowing more about the 40-something, non-smoker marathoner who died of lung cancer and being part of this event put some of the other crap in perspective.