Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Performance.

This was hung on the wall of my ninth-grade biology classroom and pointed out on a regular basis as our teacher sought to set us up for success, both in her classroom and beyond. If you read many of my posts, you know that sponsoring is a huge love of mine and a big part of my ministry here at RVA. It involves working with the class officers for a certain grade and planning different events year to year as I follow them through their high school career.

A highlight of many high school students’ journeys’ is often prom, and RVA is the same. The only difference? We call it Banquet (BQ) and a WHOLE lot more planning and prep goes into it than renting a DJ and hanging some balloons and a disco ball in the school cafeteria.

Our students craft a program for the evening, full blown entertainment in the form of live music, acting etc. A set is constructed, walls painted with giant murals-in the past, they have even erected second story balconies within Downing Hall, our theater auditorium and Banquet Hall Extraordinaire.

Here’s the catch: It is all very secretive. The juniors put it on for the seniors and after selecting a theme to center the evening around, vow not to speak a single word to a soul about any of the planning process. As head sponsor of this class, I’ve been steering this ship for months, wanting to share with you all, but not allowed to whisper a peep. Now that the event has come and gone, I am happy to share now of our journey in this process…

It began in October when we gathered for a class night of powerpoint presentations. Students stood before their peers and presented options for what could be the driving force for our event:

-Ratatouille: A fine French dining experience. White table cloths, giant chandeliers, and mimes walking around in full costume. Of course the side dish would be none other than, Ratatouille.

-The Greatest Showman: Juggling, ariel silks, and live magic for the entertainment with large circus tent vibes filling at scale the space we have to work with.

-Arabian Nights: A spice market set up in the corner, Middle Eastern delicacies and camel rides to boot!

-Avatar: Large exotic plants, a giant tree as the centerpiece with glow-in-the-dark mood lighting, pops of color illuminated by black lights.

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These and many more themes were presented as the possible driving forces for the many months of planning to come. After an initial vote narrowing the choices to three, a winner was selected.

Avatar it became.

Five different teams needed student managers to step up for leadership. Five different teams needed adult support and guidance: Set & Design, Food, Entertainment, Logistics, and Table & Servers.

Seven students applied, seven students were selected, with two each for food and set, arguably two of the three bigger tasks. We divvyed out students onto these teams based on their preferences and got to work!

The first night of planning back in November involved brainstorming where students moved from group to group getting a feel for what it would be like working with each manager while contributing thoughts and ideas of what might make the evening successful.

“A giant tree!”

“No chicken- kids got sick last year because of chicken. We don’t want chicken.”

“Can we do a lights show? Have flying banshees of some kind? Maybe we still get a camel and paint it blue like a banshee…”

“A color changing drink? Purple sweet potatoes?”

“Let’s paint the sophomores who do the serving totally blue! They’d hate that. It would be maniacal. Let’s do it.”

Some of these ideas were seen to fruition, some adjusted along the way, others given the total kibosh (there was no camel).

As January turned into February turned into March, kids were folding paper for exotic looking plants, paper macheting hanging islands, engineering a giant tree, sending email after email to various groups of students, staff and parents, testing recipe after recipe, and counting dishes over and over again. We met about twice a month as a class for 2 hours at a time, slowly gaining traction in seeing the event taking shape.

What I love about the sponsoring program is that it isn’t just about creating fun events-it’s about teaching students leadership. It’s about empowering them to be properly prepared, to take responsibility and ownership over something real, about helping their peers become unified as they work in teams towards a common goal. It’s about teaching them conflict resolution skills and humility when things don’t go their way.

As head sponsor, I was not on any given committee, but rather circulated throughout, stepping in to help teach these ‘soft’ skills as the need arose. By the end of March I had navigated more than one of these tough situations, seeing myself thrive as I asked questions for understanding and prayed with more than one student (and adult!) navigating through the expected unexpected.

I recall one conversation with an adult where we bemoaned the student manager’s hesitancy to meet and plan for how they would use the evening that was coming up soon. “They will fail.” We decided, “And we need to let them. It is going to be a hard night, but they need to learn, and this is how it is going to happen.” So we let it.

It was absolute chaos. Kids running off, playing on the (off limits) elementary student play equipment, not listening to the student managers, not prepared with materials for actual progress to be made… complete and utter chaos. With twenty minutes left in the evening, I had two student managers before me, both at the edge of tears.

I sent up a couple of prayers and began to listen. “Wowwww. Weird… your yelling at your peers didn’t motivate them to work? How odd.” That is what I wanted to say.

“That sounds really hard. Why do you think that was?” seemed to go over much better.

“What do you think needs to happen differently for next time?”

“Is it a problem on the whole, or just this one specific thing you’re talking about?”

We navigated through the emotions together and came out with a plan for the upcoming week. A few meetings, conversations and two to three weeks later and the next class night came around.

The managers showed up early. With materials. And jobs to assign their peers to. At the end of the night I checked in, “How did tonight go compared to last time?”

“A lot better…” I heard hesitancy in his voice… “Why do you think that is?” I asked.

“Well, I really hate to admit it, but I think it’s because we planned ahead.”

YESSSSS!!!!! It worked! He got the lesson! When handled well, failure really can be the best teacher. I was so thankful for the other adults on my team that were part of this specific conflict that worked with me and helped walk these students through this important fiasco.

Set wasn’t the only team struggling, food had some issues we walked through too, and let’s just say there were only 2 students out of 70 that even WANTED to be on the entertainment team. A week out from the event and I still hadn’t gotten a final cast list for who was playing what parts in the skits that came together to make up the drama. The adults that worked with our entertainment committee are the definition of saints. Truly, if you google “Saint” I think Shelah & Jade will come up.

Third term began with just three more planning nights on the calendar before the big push: Banquet Build Weekend.

You plan to plan, then plan some more, but execution of all the things happens in about one day. Parents fly in from across the continent to work alongside their students to bring to fruition the vision the students have set.

“There is no way this will happen.” I heard the student bemoan over and over again.

“Look how little we’ve done! Look how much there is to go, and you think this can happen all in a weekend?”

And so I worked to set the stage. I met one on one with each of the managers, wracking their brains for every possible task that would need to be completed during the weekend, where it would be, what supplies were still needed and how many people would be needed to execute the job. This was my second and third round through making these lists, having already picked each of their brains at class nights, and having already talked with the adults. I listed, added, sorted, re-sorted and combed through nitty gritty detail after nitty gritty detail. I was wiped.

The Friday before parents came, I piled 70 teenagers into my science lab and began my speech:
“Imagine if we had 10 hours to work on banquet instead of the two we’ve been able to do at a time for each class night, the momentum we’d gain, the progress that could be made. Imagine now 15 hours of work. What about 100?”

I started getting nods and smiles. What they didn’t know is that I was just getting started.

“Imagine now 500 hours. How much could we accomplish? What about 1000? Or even, 1500?” Here I paused before adding my proverbial mic-drop.

“We have almost 40 parents coming next week, and with the 70 of you, each of us working 10-15 hours between Friday and Saturday: in less than 24 hours collectively we will put in over 1500 hours of labor in pulling this thing together. We have about one hour tonight to prepare ourselves for 1500 hours of labor. If we do not all know our part, these 1500 hours will not be leveraged well, and we will lose the chance we have to stride forward with excellence.”

I’d scheduled an email to send prior to this evening beginning and as I finished my speech little pings echoed through the room as the job sign-ups landed on their phones. No student was allowed to leave the room without having signed up for four jobs: Friday PM, Saturday AM, Saturday PM, and Wednesday- the day of the big event.

I went back to my house exhausted. Big night one was done. I’d been in my classroom till almost 10pm more than one day that week, all in preparation to prepare…

My head spun as the next week both crept up on me and flew past. I was writing more meeting notes, on how to train the sophomores as servers, of what information to share with parents who flew across the continent to be there, of what to share with my sponsor team so we’d all be ready and on the same page. And I wasn’t the only one- each of the adults on my team (almost 16) was carrying a different lions share for the tasks that had been set before them. Chemistry classes were running on pure experience alone, there was not a single spare second to allocate to my actual full time job.

I was printing and posting schedules, the job sheet sign-ups, contact information and more. Meanwhile other adults were checking inventory orders for food coming in, paint supplies, construction materials, child safety forms, parent lists for the security officers at the gates and so so much more.

Truly, I was blessed to serve the greatest team. Proper preparation prevents poor performance indeed! I thought I was simply meeting expectations by making sure we were ready to use our time. I wasn’t surprised as Saturday drew to a close and we were sending students home early, our work done ahead of schedule. I wasn’t surprised that all I had to do was walk around and smile at folks as they worked, no jobs open for me to do myself. I wasn’t surprised that things ran exactly according to plan: I’d made the plan. What I didn’t expect was comment after comment from parents who had come to BQ Build weekends before with their older children complementing the level of organization and ease with which things ran.

Sunday was a day of rest, a day of beauty executed by our logistics team. After all the hard work on Friday & Saturday, we got a special time of worship together during “junior church” in the Ampitheater. A BBQ lunch followed this with lawn games and sports in the gym and on upper field, a time to simply enjoy being all together as a class and with families.

The next few days passed uneventfully as we chugged along on prep, parents meeting in the cafo to prep food, or in Downing Hall to finish a couple last minute things we knew we couldn’t do in advance (like set tables and hang the live greenery). With the support of my department providing sub coverage, I was free to check in on different areas and offer my help where needed. When Wednesday 3:00pm came and it was time for me to do my hair and make-up so I could transition from planner to attendee, not a single spec of dust was out of place…

To be continued in The Big Event: Attending