Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Lack of that important sense of belonging

Seems like this is turning out to be a disease. People taking for granted that things will fall from the sky for them and they don't need to do much to get to where they want to go. Frish blogged about it the other day. I think I blogged about it some time last year. And I still see it happening and it saddens me.
I have said it before and I will say it again. If you don't want something BADLY enough, you will never work hard for it. You will never have that sense of belonging and will therefore, not work hard to attain some of those goals that the group hopes to achieve.
Example, QM. It took years to bring up the name of QM. Look at how things have turned out in the last year or so. It was my constant complaint that the members did not BELONG and therefore had no PASSION to do the things that they should do. I have never ceased to thank the TWINS for their commitment during those years they were in Sri Aman's QM. Not only them but the few girls who were there with them. They know who they are. They gave me a reason to fight for them, to do things for them. Now all I can say is that QM is on the verge of collapse and if nobody does something radical and bring them together, all will be lost. And that saddens me because QM was once my baby. They were supposed to grow up, not walk and toddle unsteadily without this MOMMA!
Example number 2, is D*starz, or Cheer Club as a whole. Last year, when I stepped in as an advisor, I was full of fire to help build the club into something more organised and having some long term goals. Didn't quite happen. Partially it was because of the lack of commitment of the members. I complained about how some of the squad members of B*starz did not attend practices. I complained about the lack of discipline. I pushed and then I shoved. I threatened and I advised. In all the things that happened, I somehow managed to settle most of the immediate problems, if only to make sure the squad made it to Cheer 08. The fact that I spent a lot of my own money first in many situations was never truly appreciated by the girls. The fact that I had to personally call them and remind them EVERY DAY about practices and paying up coaching fees and supporters' shirts money, was, to put it mildly, FRUSTRATING. I was upset with most of them for just not behaving as a team. A TEAM!!!! That was last year.
This year, the disease is spreading. D*starz is seeing what I saw. Why? Because the juniors, young ones, are now becoming part of D*starz due to the fact that many have left D*starz because of SPM! So what do we do? I decided NO MORE B*STARZ. Concentrate on D*starz as a squad, and then train up new ones to EVENTUALLY become B*starz or straight to D*starz ... perhaps by end of this year. Honestly, I tell you, D*starz will have BIG PROBLEM next year if this is not realised. Look at how many attend practices. Among the juniors, especially. I was watching them today and I cannot help but to wonder how they are going to make the team proper. If they cannot be dedicated enough to attend at least 90% of the practices, we will have a problem.
So back to my point - perhaps they don't feel like part of the team yet. Or is it because they do not see yet how important it is to be part of the team. Is it just for glamour that they want to don the D*starz uniform? I assure each and every one of the juniors - YOU MUST DESERVE TO WEAR THE UNIFORM! I might be very hard on some people, but there is no choice. Even if I become VERY unpopular, so be it. It's not popularity I'm gunning for. It's to make the group a stronger group. To make the group an entity that can hold its head up high as say "I HAVE DONE THE BEST POSSIBLE".
And so, I salute the original B*starz. You know who you are. You made B*starz happen when no one else was there to help you and you wanted it badly enough to go through all you went through. I have yet to see people with the same passion and calibre in the young ones. Until that happens, there can be no B*starz. But we can still work towards that. We can hope and we can work it out. Won't we?

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