By India Emerick
The Community Service Leadership Team, a veritably unknown entity in the school, will be reaching the end of an era come graduation.The team, originally a creation of Bob Doyle’s, grew immensely in organization and clarity during the reign of Chris McAvoy, and will now likely continue to change after his departure.
Unfortunately, there has always been a cloud of confusion shrouding the idea.Many students, and even teachers, had no idea when the group met, who was in it, or even what it did.The history is relatively unknown as well.When Bob Doyle was in charge, it wasn’t as much of a team as it was a series of sporadic announcements from Bob to the students about community service opportunities.Yet this was more or less the school’s first involvement in the world of volunteering.When Chris arrived, one of his first accomplishments was to coordinate volunteers into a group.His main goal was to instill leadership skills and a passion for volunteer work into students.Unfortunately, he feels as though the students haven’t reached the desired level of responsibility.In a recent community service meeting, he said with a mournful headshake, “I want to train you all to be leaders.I don’t know to what extent we’ve succeeded in that.”
Many students agree that the team hasn’t been as successful as possible, either in terms of organization or leadership.There have been quite a few shortcomings, the largest of which has been the lack of general knowledge.When asked for their opinions on the concept of the group, multiple freshmen wondered, “What is it?” and were surprised when informed of its existence.Paige’s opinion: “The meetings are super boring and super long.”The team has had a very sporadic and varied group of members, as dedicating every activity period is extremely difficult.
Changes have yet to be decided, such as who will take over Chris’s responsibilities.As of now, both Chris’s and the students’ choice is Hannes, but he is debating taking another position at the school.Chris’s dream will live on, though, and next year there will hopefully be a more structured group membership, recruiting and development.Says Chris, “I hope that in the coming years we can build on it and develop leadership skills.”