Working in the committee of a club

I have been the the committee of my choir for a bit more than a year now. I have learned a lot, been to several meetings and I did a lot of work. I thought it would be interesting to share my experiences here.

Last year I took over part oft he media and communication side of the work. That meant I was responsible for a lot of different things. One part is writing the sponsor file. It’s what we send to our potential sponsors with all the information about the next concert. There included is the actual piece we are singing, more details about it and background info, also about the composer. Everything about the choir, the orchestra, the conductor and possible soloists. Of course we talk about the concert location and what we actually offer them in return. Connected to this is writing the programme for the concerts, with lyrics etc. I’m also the direct contact person fort he printer, so I send them all the files and organize who is picking it up.

Something I’m not doing anymore, but did in my first committee year is everything connected to Facebook, our website and newsletter. We have a team of writers and that „writing committee“ meets about twice a year. I was the leader for that team for a year. We discussed the articles for the website and also for our bulletin, which is sent out once a year to friends of the choir. Usually there is a new article on the website every month. That one is also shared on Facebook and we also share pictures and other things on Facebook. I handled that last year. The bulletin is a big thing and a lot of work, because everyone had to send me their articles, I had to put it all into the layout and send it to them again to correct. Then I sent it to the printer and afterwards it had to be packed in envelopes with the flyer and everything. It wasn’t y favourite thing to do, because people didn’t send me articles on time and it got very stressful. I’m very happy I don’t have to do that anymore, I just have to send the finished piece to the printer. We started sending out a newsletter as well and I prepared everything for that and sent it. That’s also a thing I’m not doing anymore.

So, I now said several times that I don’t do that work anymore. The reason for this is that we had a meeting in the media/communication area and we distributed the tasks differently. Instead of handing website, bulletin, newsletter and facebook I now am the contact person for media. That change made sense, because I have all the information and texts already for the programme and the sponsor file.

I do all this work voluntarily. I have a full time job, so I usually do this work in the evening or on the weekend. A thing that proved to be great, is working during my holidays, because I can get much more work done. Of course I don’t always do that, but when I’m home and the weather is terrible, it’s the best time. I really got into a rhythm this year and finally figured out what to do when. Of course that changed a bit now, because I don’t have to do certain things anymore and got some new tasks.

The other committee members are great to work with. We usually have a lot of fun during our meetings and everyone really does a great job, which makes things easier. My mum used to be in the committee of out theatre group and there it’s wasn’t always easy and she had to do a lot of additional work. When she left, everyone wanted me to take over and they couldn’t understand why I chose the choir over them. The main reason for my decision is the organization. In the choir everything is organized and people are doing their job, not in that other committee. My mum had to do so much additional work and people were just not grateful. That’s why I’m really happy with my decision.

Even though it is a lot of work, I enjoy it and it also gave my another role in the choir, which I quite like.  People always under estimated me and that’s not the case anymore.

We have some new committee members now and the president changed as well, so I’m curious how it will go.

We have a concert at the end of June and after that it’s “Musical Classics” at the beginning of next year. I’m very excited for this one and also to organize things around it.

I hope you enjoyed this little trip to something I do next to my job. Are you doing something similar?! What are your experiences?