The Philanthropic Kids Club, first official meeting

This past Sunday, we hosted the first official meeting for the Philanthropic Kids Club. With a total of 7 kids, we have now officially voted on a board for the club.

Zack will serve as the President
Connor will serve as the VP
Sophia will serve as the Secretary and also as our Service Leader Chair
KC will serve as an aid to the Secretary
Thomas will serve as our Treasurer

I am so excited about this club, and look forward to sharing the stories with you. I have an unbelievable group of youths under my wings, although on Sunday it felt as though I flew under theirs.

Here are some highlights of our first meeting:

We were discussing finalizing on a name for our club, and it was unanimous that Philanthropic Kids Club was not going to be it:) So, I asked them if they had other suggestions... one youth said, yes, I think we should call it the K.A.R.M.A. Club. KARMA standing for Kids Achieving Results for Mankind and Animals. I thought, wow, that was very clever.... but one of the kids, a quick thinker, and very analytical at that, voiced his opinion... he said, "When I think of Karma I think of a bad word, and what goes around comes around, so I don't personally like it... I feel it is not representative of who we are and what we are going to do..." The manner in which he voiced his opinion was flooring, let alone his reasoning.

So, I said, yeah, I agree... I think that is a very valid point, however do you all feel as though maybe we can change the connotation to a more positive attitude, we will do everything rightfully, peacefully and whole heatedly, and this will come to us... They thought for a moment, and felt it would take a tremendous effort, but most of all the name did not have a good first impression.
So, one of the girls said, "well at my school, we have a club called the DEAR club, it stands for Drop Everything and Read, so we can call it the DEAH (pronounced DUH) club... Drop Everything And Help..." We all started laughing... and it was so great. The kids started role playing out loud, and saying "yea, we belong to the DUH club...lol" it was great!

Although we have not finalized on the name we will be at our next meeting on Sunday October 31st.

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We were talking about how often we should meet.... I asked them what their thoughts were on that... unanimously they all said once a week, they said, it was imperative that we met weekly to stay on task and in good communication, and so that we could set proper goals... another one of those moments I was floored!

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Like every club, members have to pay dues. We discussed what would be a reasonable amount of money for each member to pay as a due... and we agreed on $5 per month. I asked them where they were going to get the money from, you should have heard this conversation! Kids are so funny, and know just how they are going to weasel their way around their parents... it's not going to be a problem, said one! I could not help but just laugh out loud!

In addition, we have decided on Happy Cents... at each meeting we will being the meeting by going around to each member asking them for happy cents. For every 25cents the member gives us, they can share one thing they are happy about. They were so excited about this... I am very lucky to be part of such great spirit!

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In talking about a treasurer's role, and coming up with our policies and procedures, meeting dates and times, we were talking about meeting at a public place each Sunday morning. Before I could even bring up our next point of discussion... do you think our club should pay for our breakfast each week.... one of the girls jumped up and said, "I think we should meet for breakfast, but I think we should not use our club's money for our own breakfast... I think each person should bring extra money for their own breakfast..."

I could not believe this. While serving as a member for a Professional Service Club, this was my argument with the board for the three years I served as a member. I felt that our dues should not go towards the cost of breakfast for us... we needed to either eat before our meeting or pay additional for breakfast, but that this was not an expense that our club should incur. I never got my point across with them... however, here are a group of kids, who thought that was an obvious responsibility.

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Here is to our club... a group of committed, dedicated, spirited, and the most kindest youths, who's intentions are to serve our community and world at large, and to educate others in caring for our environment, mankind and animals. I am proud to be a part of such great kids, who I have so much to learn from... we will continue next week.