SOCIAL SERVICE AGENCIES, LONG MEETINGS AND SANDALS

Attending meetings hosted by social service agencies is like attending your own funeral and expecting to be able to have a coherent conversation with the person delivering your eulogy. Social service workers tend to think they are the most critical people in the world, that what they have to say is more important than a NORAD alert about an impending terrorist strike on a major city, and that everybody that they’ve managed to coerce and lure to their meeting are as naïve and susceptible to this critical message as a Brethren congregation is to their Minister’s dogma. And the biggest complaint I have about meetings hosted by social service agencies is that I’m not getting any younger and I won’t live forever – and my watch indicates that an hour long meeting should run for about 60 minutes; not 240.

So I recently got invited to attend one of these meetings in a rural township about an hour’s drive from where I work. So already, in accepting the invitation, I’m committing to two hours travel time out of my otherwise important schedule. And the agenda for this meeting extends over an hour (so that’s three hours commitment in total) and involves a 15 minute presentation from a key note speaker representing one social service agency, a 10 minute presentation from another, and then a round table of agency updates. My expectation: I’ll gain some informative insight from the key note speaker, gain a better appreciation of the activities of the second agency, and participate in some valuable networking activities.

Reality is a cube when only circles will do.

Upon arrival to the meeting venue, we are all ushered into a room where the chairs have been placed into a huge circle – a typical sandal wearing social service type set up. And once seated the host suggests we all go around an introduce ourselves. He even has a cute little cuddly toy that we’re supposed to hold as we do; and then pass on to the next person when we’re done. And he wants us to tell everyone our name, who we work for or represent, and the type of racing car we think we are???? Like, what’s that last one all about?

Audi R8 – silver.

After 10 minutes have been wasted on this little exercise, he now introduces the keynote speaker. She represents a group whose primary role is to protect and foster the professional development of Youth Workers in the region. She has 10 power point slides to present to us and 15 minutes to do it in. Oh, and by the way, she thinks she's a '69 Chevrolet (but looks more like the '49 model).

At the outset she asserts that her organisation does not focus on Youth, only on Youth Workers and their professional development needs – so far, so good.

She then presents her first slide – the one with the title of her presentation on it. But rather than focus on the title, she hones in on the picture above it: a photograph of five young lads about 15 years of age. She tells us that the one in the middle is her son and here’s his story in 10 (exacerbatingly long) minutes. This is followed by a brief account of all the other young people in the photo and how they relate to her son. Oh, and by the way, this photo is five years old apparently!!!

Her second slide names all the Trustees in her organisation: 15 in all – but that’s fair enough, it might be important information to some people in the room.

The third slide she presents to us gives the CV of each individual Trustee in full – another 10 minutes worth of presenting. We’re now 29 minutes into her 15 minute presentation.

It’s hardly surprising to me by this stage that her fourth slide is solely and absolutely all about her – and on and on she goes; another 10 plus minutes (boy, is she important).

Finally the host interrupts her and politely tells her she has five minutes left. No wonder he wears sandals – he needs to be able to count his toes when doing his maths.

She races through her fifth and sixth slides which provide more amazing information about her (like how she once caught a 16 pound Snapper off the West Coast with the help of her father when she was about 10 years old).

The seventh and eight slides present some details about a couple of projects her organisation is engaged in regarding youth – namely developing a local youth forum and setting up a blue light disco (in conjunction with local Police). But hang on a minute – didn’t you say at the outset that you protect and foster the professional development of Youth Workers in the region and that you don’t actually focus on youth directly? I’m getting confused – go back to telling me all about yourself.

Her ninth slide has her contact details on it just in case we have any questions about what her and her organisation does – well I have bucket loads of questions about her organisation but I pretty much think that I know about as much as I need to know about her right now

At last slide number 10. This is simply her “thank you for coming” slide; that’s all it says. Only there’s another photo there of a group of people sitting around a table in what looks like another meeting. Only she explains that the lady on the left is her Grandmother and this was her 97^th birthday and next to her is Uncle Eric, then brother Samuel, Peter (not sure how he’s related), Aunty June…

Another 20 minutes consumed – the meeting thus far is into its 89^th minute and we still have a 10 minute presentation from the second speaker and the round table updates to come.

But wait!!! Rather than proceed with those, sandal wearing host announces that it’s time for a break and a cup of tea.

I think social service agency meetings suck… and usually I’m right.