| Shouldn’t
… |
Might… |
Should… |
| Lose
the spiritual foundation and focus that defines and
guides our work. |
Invite
speakers to your meetings – perhaps a Vincentian from
another conference, perhaps the Director of one of our
homes, the conferences spiritual director – anyone you
feel can help to focus the members on who we really are
and what our work is really about. |
Make
the prayer and spiritual reflection an important,
meaningful part of each meeting (and not just a habit or
routine) |
| Allow
members who are racist, judgmental or uncharitable in
their behaviour toward clients to remain in your
conference. |
Try
to recruit members from different ethnic/racial groups.
Challenge
members who make inappropriate comments, even if
“joking”
Get
a speaker or material on the harmfulness of generalizing
and stereotyping.
|
Set
a high standard of behavior, both in word in action.
Your conference and the clients are better off
without a member who does not treat clients (even the
“repeaters”) in a compassionate, respectful manner. |
| Allow
a We-They
mentality to creep into the language or behavior of
Vincentians towards clients. |
Take
some time in your conference to discuss, “Is it
possible to practice Christian humility and still
consider myself better than ‘them’ (those I
serve)?” |
Help
your members to think and act inclusively.
When we see clients as
“they-them”, we are
putting ourselves separate and above them, proudly
believing that we would never allow ourselves o be in
“their situation” or convinced that we would quickly
get out of it. |
| Allow
your conference to stagnate, because of no new members
or no change of leadership. |
Look
at the Recruitment Chapter (available through Central
Office or on our web site – svdptoronto.org) and do
the two self-rating inventories, “Do we need new
members?” & “Are we ready for new members?”
There are potential members and potential leaders
out there. Are
you ready to break out of the known and the comfortable.
It
has been suggested that conferences that don’t have or
aren’t prepared to get a minimum
of 6 members should c lose down or join with a neighboring
conference. What
do you think??
|
Commit
to bringing in at least one or two new members a year
and to helping develop members into leaders.
Conferences that haven’t had any new members
for a few years or where the same person has been
president for ten years obviously aren’t interested in
growth or change. |
| Facilitate
clients becoming dependent on Society support by simply
regularly giving vouchers and failing to help them
(through whatever creative means available) to make some
move toward greater self sufficiency |
Use
excerpts from Schema I of the Rule as the spiritual
reading in order to remind the members what Christ is
calling us to and what Ozanam is challenging us to do.
If it becomes only about handing out vouchers, it
may be time to close shop. |
Gear
most meetings toward helping your members to be more
skilled, creative and determined in helping their
clients to become less dependent on Society assistance.
Regularly remind each other that the vouchers are
a means, not an end. |
| Allow
your members to burn out because there are too few
trying to do too much. |
Take
the clients served over the past month or two and ask
the conference to prioritize them, in terms of some
criteria. The
discussion resulting from attempting to develop criteria
and prioritize the clients will be very productive.
If some clients are going to be underserved or
delayed, try to make sure it’s not the higher priority
ones. |
Get
more members through a well planned recruitment campaign
(resource booklet available through Central) and set
priorities. If
there aren’t enough members and too many clients,
determine which clients are a priority, based on some
criteria that the conference has set. |
| Allow
meetings to become so repetitive, long, predictable, or
unstimulating that members seek to avoid them. |
|
Meetings
should be spiritual, interesting, informative, enjoyable
and fraternal. Vincentians
should leave meetings feeling a little more motivated,
inspired, knowledgeable, skilled or committed.
Plan your meeting to help accomplish this. |
| Allow
a mentality of “what ours is ours” to creep into
decisions about whether to send up funds that aren’t
really required in the conference. |
If
the parish priest does not permit funds collected in the
parish to be sent up, try to explain to him the
importance within the Society of sharing funds and
moving them to where the need is greatest.
You may wish to seek the assistance of the
Particular Council in this regard. |
Assist
your clients in a way that is reasonable and in keeping
with what other conferences across TCC are doing and
send the excess funds up, so they can be used to assist
in other areas. Ozanam
developed this structure very wisely and carefully.
It helps level the playing field for poorer
conferences. |
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