If you ever had a fleeting thought that you want to run for Key Club Lieutenant Governor...
Division 8, You’ve seen a lot of comments on the facebook group about encouraging you to run for LTG if you really want to, but there was nothing that was able to go in depth about it and I have a feeling that the message didn’t really reach you when I talked about it at the meetings. I have no where else to post about this except here so please excuse my methods of informal communication.
Going to the Candidate Training Conference this past weekend really reminded me of what it felt like to run for the position. Yes, it’s frightening. Yes, you are taking a risk. But trust me when I say that no matter the result, you will benefit from taking this opportunity. There’s been lots of comments….
SO HERE’S A QUICK Q&A FOR YOU: (skip to SUMMARY at the bottom if you don’t care about the specifics)
Traveling: There really isn’t that much to handle. DCON (twice), 3 board meetings, and club visitations (which are always fun). The board meetings generally last from Friday evenings to Sunday mornings. You can consider it a MINI VACATION that’s paid for! You get to see the other LTG’s (which is ALWAYS exciting considering we all live in different areas and can’t hang out with each other). Sometimes you get to travel with your region for an extra day (for me, we went around LA).
Relations: YES, YOU CAN STILL GET CLOSE TO MEMBERS. Not being able to see members/officers everyday at school could sometimes come as a blessing. It made me treasure the moments that I was able to see the individual members and pshhh you get REALLY close to all the officers.
Key Club Work: It is manageable once you get into the pace of things. Think about it, there are 2 submissions each month (which you will learn more about when you are elected) and a DCM that must be held. THAT’S IT. Other than that, it is UP TO YOU to how YOUR Key Club year will look. Some do more, some do less, that is why you have ASSISTANTS to help you. It really depends on how ambitious YOU want to be so don’t automatically think “OHMYGOD, those e-mails are SOO LONG, I don’t wanna be typing that up every night!” Those (I was told, they are monstrous) e-mails I send out aren’t required, I send those at my own discretion to keep up good communication with you, but like I said, NOT REQUIRED. (OFFICERS, STOP SCARING THE MEMBERS WITH MY E-MAILS, DON’T SHOW IT TO THEM)
Other Responsibilities (Classes, Clubs, Sports): Yes, there will be times that you will have to prioritize what you do and sometimes, Key Club has to come first. Whether that means not going to that BOMB party everyone’s been talking about or not getting that extra hour of sleep, you gotta do what you gotta do. Some LTG’s had to drop some of their extra responsibilities while others (like myself) was able to keep up with everything as well as being LTG. I’m proud to say that I haven’t had to really drop any extra club or hard classes (I actually joined/took more this year). Each individual is different.
Sleep: Yeah, you might not get much of this SOMETIMES. Like Fall season gets pretty crazy around September and October but other than that, it’s mainly the difficult classes I take that keep me up at night, NOT Key Club. Space your time out, like I said earlier, IT’S ALL MANAGEABLE.
Money: You receive a budget that can be spent on gas mileage, paper, ink, etc. so that should appease your parents. Believe me, knowing me ( I AM a penny-pincher :), I would not have run for LTG if I knew that I would lose a substantial amount of money from it.
SUMMARY/IN GENERAL:
We often block ourselves from reaching our full potential because we are scared to fail. However, in this case, I can tell you that you WILL NOT fail. If your thoughts to run for LTG came from you caring about the community or if you had a certain idea that you want to share with us, then SHARE IT. SPEAK. I promise you that no one will think badly of you for CARING ENOUGH to run, for CARING ENOUGH for the community. So use this chance of having a five minute speech to announce your innermost thoughts to us, what you want to improve, what the community means to you, what inspired you, WHO ARE YOU.
This past weekend at CTC, all of the LTG’s were talking about their most precious moments and I was having a hard time thinking of one simply because there’s SO MANY. Members tell me they are scared to let people down and believe me, whether you run for a club officer position or for a division position, you WILL let people down once or a few times. Not to sound negative, but that is the reality of things. And I can tell you what I learned. Even when you let your people down a couple of times (as I admit that I did), YOU ARE NOT ALONE. There are always people (whether it’s other LTG’s, families, or Key Club members) there that appreciates your efforts. And that moment you realize that it’s okay to fail, that you learned from your mistakes, you can stand up and move on.
I don’t know how else to say it, if you have a passion, GO FOR IT. I’m telling you now, you don’t have to have the all the experience in the world and you don’t have to be the most outgoing person in the division to run. You just have to have the passion. When I ran, I wasn’t the most outgoing person, I wasn’t the experienced person who held a Key Club position for 3 years, I wasn’t any of those things, but somehow the members believed in me and what I had to say because I cared enough to show it. And if YOU care enough, then you don’t need anything superficial. Just present yourself.
…They handed out this paper at CTC that showed a balance of the benefits and costs of being LTG. That piece of paper is useless. Because if you ask any LTG, I’m sure that they will say the benefits outweigh the costs.
Did you know? All of the extraordinary people in the world and in our history…were really just ordinary people like you.
If you have any more questions about it, just e-mail me: d08.cnhkc.ltg@gmail.com
