Proposal #48: CISV: done.
I propose that a membership in CISV has a limit of 10 years. No matter what you do in CISV - participate, lead, volunteer or staff - after a decade of CISV, it's over.
Rationale
If people participate in CISV, become leaders, and later chapter board members, the CISV world will only turn in circles. Furthermore, there is only so much CISV can teach you. At some point it is time for an individual to move on - to take what she or he has learned and apply it elsewhere. And last but not least, to create space for new people joining the organisation.
Respectfully submitted, Sarah (USA)
5 Comments:
ah, so a person who has been a village-kid can never be a village-leader?
Brilliant! Not that I agree with the method but the sentiment/problem its trying to fix is certainly there.
Sorry to say it, but village-kids turned village-leaders that try to recreate their experience do so at the detriment to the children and the program. And there are enough of these people to make it difficult for the village experience to evolve and develop with the times and needs of creating a more peaceful world.
I fairly new to CISV (1 year) and was really excited about taking a village delegation and all the values that are embedded in CISV. At the village I found that some leaders wanted to recreate their village experience and this made it really difficult to come up with new and relevant activities - not just the things that were "fun" 10+ years ago. Tradition is great, but the way we encourage peace education has to evolve with the kids and the problems we face. While emotionally a great experience, I don't know if CISV lives up to its educational potential and part of it is the domination of tradition/reliving past experiences over creativity. Experience is important, trying to recreate experience is not.
Maybe if we had this rule we could get some new music for CISV camps -- is anyone else tired of the 1960s lullabies?
But seriously -- I like the sentiment behind the idea. But maybe this could accomplish a better objective if it read something like this: No one can remain a member of a local, national and/or international board for more than ten years. That way we could get some new ideas and faces in the organization, share leadership roles and not drain the organization's membership roles.
I could not disagree more with this proposal. First of all in less established NAs people who have been in CISV for 10 years (starting with Village, Summer camp or JB..etc) are usually the people who are running the organizations locally, this is ofcourse relevant to each NA.
The other point is since when was experience a flaw? I am very for new blood and new ideas and all, but I strongly believe that it is the mixture of new and old that creates balance as well as creativity in any organization.
Finally, CISV is a volunteer organization, If a person wants to give a year, 5 year or their whole lives into it I don't think we should limit someone wanting to give our organization time, effort and experience.
I agree very much with the principle of the proposal.
Though in practice it could be really hard to stay alive (especially in some chapters, as Rou pointed out), I think the idea is pretty good.
As I see it, there's a constant struggle between "Reasoning" and "Tradition" in CISV. Un-professional management, as we usually have, tend to choose between "what has been done before" and "what I think it's best". Though the first one definitely keeps us safe, the second is what makes us move forward.
So, I guess, ideally we would get into a system in which reasoning and tradition can battle for our leadership's minds.
At the moment, I think, good reasoning has the capacity to affect tradition; but tradition has often the strength to shut down reason - and that is unacceptable.
I say 6 years years max. for whichever position.
[lullabies point was brilliant]
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