THE EVOLUTION OF A
TCF CHAPTER
A year
after our daughter died, Peggy and I began attending a small TCF chapter in a
town an hour’s drive away. That chapter met on the first Sunday afternoon of
each month. After we had attended their meetings for about a year, the chapter
leader urged us to start a TCF chapter in Nashville.
The National Office was contacted,
a chapter application made and with the help of two other couples we discussed
the where and when of chapter meetings. We decided that we wanted to meet on
Sunday afternoon so parents would not have to go out on school nights and
single mothers would not have to find sitters and drive across town at night.
Then, too, parents could drive in from distant towns—some now drive two hours
one-way and attend every chapter meeting. They can do that on Sunday afternoon
while it wouldn’t be practical for a weeknight meeting.
We wanted to find a meeting place
that was neutral. Many chapters meet in churches but we felt that some might be
reluctant to attend a meeting in a church. We wanted to avoid meeting in a
conference room of a hospital because that might be an uncomfortable setting
for some members. We contacted the president of a large centrally located
corporation, explained who we were and what we wanted to do and he gave us
permission to meet in the company cafeteria. We’ve met there on the second
Sunday afternoon of each month since 1987 free of charge. Tables are moved, and
chairs are formed into a circle for the first hour, after which we break up into
six to eight small sharing groups seated at tables scattered around the
cafeteria, each table with a facilitator. It has worked out extremely well.
About eight months after starting
the chapter, Peggy and I attended a chapter leadership workshop in another
state. One of the leaders there said their chapter’s steering committee plans
chapter programs a year in advance. A year in advance! That blew my mind! And a
steering committee? How do you form a steering committee? We were doing
everything ourselves!
We received information from the
National Office on how to form a steering committee. We learned not to ask for
volunteers because we might get someone who is not responsible. Rather we would
select members who were responsible, willing to work and far enough away from
their own grief that they could help others. These individuals were approached
and asked to serve on the committee and asked to take some small responsibility
for just six months. Most accepted. We guessed that after six months they
wouldn’t want to give up their jobs because they would discover that it is
healing to be able to help others. We were right. They wanted to keep helping.
With a functioning steering committee meeting every other month, even planning
programs a year in advance was easy. The committee simply listed the months of
the year and brainstormed programs for each month. Not a problem. The committee
started meeting at our house for supper after the chapter meeting. We’d all
chip in and bring in pizza or fried chicken, fellowship together, talk about
that day’s chapter meeting and discuss chapter business. This time together
strengthened the committee members’ resolve to keep the chapter strong and
growing in its outreach to the newly bereaved and to the community.
Five years passed and we were still
chapter leaders. We knew that was not healthy for the chapter. The chapter was
entitled to a change. It needed new leadership, new faces, new ideas, but each
time we brought up in a steering committee meeting the need for a change in chapter
leadership, the committee would always say what a great job we were doing. Any
of those committee members was capable of being a chapter leader. Each was
picked for the committee because they could be a potential chapter leader. But
none of them would voluntarily accept that responsibility. Sound familiar?
In a workshop on leadership
transition at a national conference we learned one way to transfer chapter
leadership. Not the best way, but an effective way. So at the next steering
committee meeting we told the group that as of the first of the month three
months in the future we would no longer be their chapter leaders. They would
have to pick someone from the committee. They had three months to do it. They
were astonished. They wanted to know if we were mad. No, we weren’t mad. Were
we leaving the chapter? No, we weren’t leaving the chapter; we were just
leaving the chapter leadership role to someone else. They knew we meant what we
said so they got busy over the next couple of weeks and at a subsequent meeting
elected a new chapter leader—but this time something different was done.
This time the steering committee
adopted some simple bylaws that had been received from National which state
that the chapter leader serves for two years and that after the two year term,
if they are willing and if the steering committee votes to keep them, they can
serve for two more years, but no more. Four years is the maximum.
A week or so after we had announced
our resignation a member of the steering committee called me at my office and
asked to have lunch with me. We met, ate lunch and finally he brought the
subject up. He said, “I’ve been thinking about your resignation from chapter
leadership.” Oh, I thought, here it comes; he’s going to blast me! Then he
said, “What you did was very unselfish.” Yes, he got it! I told him that now he
really understood! I told him that people in the past would tell us how we, as
chapter leaders, “saved their lives” and that in the future the newly bereaved
parents would say that to the new chapter leader. She would be the one they’d
look to. They wouldn’t know that we had ever had a leadership role in the
chapter and that was just fine with us. She would receive the love from the
hurting hearts she helped. And she did. She would receive the healing that
comes from helping others. And she did.
Our chapter has had four different
sets of leaders over sixteen years. When a chapter leader is in their last year
in office, the steering committee knows it needs to start planning for
leadership transition. And it does. The transition has always been smooth and
each one who has served as chapter leader was thankful for the opportunity to
do so. It has been so satisfying to us to see others accept leadership
responsibilities because they, too, want the chapter to be a vibrant resource
in our community for years to come.
In addition to being a chapter
leader I have served as an RC, a member of the National Board, given workshops
at conferences and co-chaired a national conference, but one of my most
treasured moments of all of my TCF experiences was when I gave up chapter
leadership and that steering committee member said, “What you did was very
unselfish.”
David Gibson
August 9, 2003
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