The Rise and Fall of Puppetry Club (Part 5)

That's the story. I told everything that needed to be told. I suppose it's time to talk about what we learned today -

And so what we have learned applies to our lives today,
and God has a lot to say in His Book.

Oh, come on! It doesn't work like that! This is a blog!

You see, we know that God's Word is for everyone;
and now that our song is done, we'll take a look.

Sorry about that. But anyway, I learned a lot from those few weeks of being a club president of something that could have been big. I'll summarize these lessons each individually.

Leadership is not meant for some people. I'm one to come in on a strictly creative level. I'm a writer/performer but I never again want to be in a presidential position, a task I seldom enjoyed. I want to be equal with my colleagues. Everyone should be able to put something in. In terms of things like this, all for one and one for all is a very good way to define this. Someone will have to take on a different position depending on their qualifications and all are needed.

Starting bigger is not always better. Looking back, I had to be crazy to think I could put together the funds and planning for a big-budget variety show in two-and-a-half months. These things can't be rushed like that. Even with the school plays, planning begins at least six months in advance with preliminarily work. As an analogy, I'll use Pixar. It took Pixar six years between founding 1982 to get a motion picture deal with Disney in 1992 and another three years before Toy Story came out. Had Pixar jumped into feature animation right out of the gate, Toy Story could have made the earliest VeggieTales videos look like Up by comparison. It was a huge mistake to throw people into a huge project like the Puppetry Club variety show.

Being an individual is sometimes better. My original intent with the club was not to get another picture in the yearbook but rather to try to get people to follow in my long path of the art of puppetry, keep things going for even years after I've graduated. But the thing I realized is that people loved my work for years without having an apprentice of sorts or people following me. By the end of the school year, I realized I was much better off a solo act while still in public schooling. Being a one-of-a-kind is a lot better off than being in a leadership position like I had.

So there you have it. I have seen the enemy and he is me. I built the club on my strengths and my weaknesses killed it. My intentions were generally quite good but I had no experience or knowledge managing people or leading teams to accomplish goals. This experience will hopefully be the final time I will have to go through such an endeavor again. It's just not the thing for me.

There. I said it.