A letter to all Club and Societies related CCA Leaders:

I recently received calls from mentees and juniors about all sorts of problems hatching within CCAs back in school, and I find it repetitive. Most of these problems are actually prevalent in CCAs across local schools. Here are three main points that often tackles the most hectic headaches of countless of student leaders.

CCA should not be just about competitions, or follow-through motions

To the readers of this post who are, or were formerly in a clubs and societies related CCA: think about the time when you were asked about your most meaningful experiences in school. How many of you actually find it annoying as you find it hard to come up with something that you really feel significant or proud of, and sort of regret not doing something better during your CCA days? For a long while, I have heard lots of peers around me, including CCA leaders, commenting that their time spent in CCA was a waste. Often, there was comparison made between their experiences on the ground, and another person who enjoyed a seemingly more rewarding CCA life, and naturally a more robust graduate portfolio. Speaking from experience (including a few I mentored before), is often the lack of ownership in whatever they do, or simply they can’t find meaning.

Let’s look at the cause of failure for such a CCA, and, for CCA leaders and mentors, what are the tell-tale signs that you might be drowning in this kind of CCA life. Firstly, what happens when a CCA lacks pride and motivation is that people are merely following through what needs to be done, often half-heartedly or just literally “bo-chap”, since they have no choice but to be there to fulfil the curriculum requirement of attending CCAs after the organisation itself failed their expectations of guaranteeing an ideal CCA that they would enjoy in. This is understandable, and high chance this wasn’t at their fault. Why? They simply don’t see the meaning to them for doing all the stuff like repeating the routine of projects after projects for simple competitions that looked like jokes after a while! What’s more, most common people don’t have much luxury of time and effort to hijack their precious energy just to think about something else that’s more exciting and to take charge from scratch. (Just imagine those are commoners facing the stress of failing tests and knowing that they won’t be as recognised as those with appointments. Will you take that extra effort to care for something that may not even pay as well as scoring for a math test?)

Another case, people are just sick and tired of going for competitions after competitions that they barely had chance of securing victory (and nothing else!!), which their effort just doesn’t really translate to fruitful achievements. Realised something? No one would want to say stuff so depressing as such in any occasion. That’s where people realised that they are short of lots of experiences that people from Council, UG, or even AVA Clubs would have gained elsewhere (be it community projects, organising events etc.), such as communicating skills in the society, event planning, managing failures and stress, sense of fulfilment and usefulness.

A lot of times, it doesn’t really matter about the amount of achievements you got from winning competitions. School leaders, or down to teachers-in-charge, often used competition achievements as a benchmark of how well a CCA perform, and I find it naïve, simply because that doesn’t define how successful and meaningful the CCA culture is. The game plan fails as soon as a member cannot find the reason to commit to the CCA and that the CCA isn’t helping much in growing him/her in person.

Speaking from opinion, I would rather a CCA doing more in areas such as community services, deepening life skills such as administrative accounting and resource management, where the responsibility of conducting goes down to individuals. (Notice that anyone in the club have the right to take lead and initiate a project, and the job of CCA leaders should be taking the supporting role, since your job includes the wellbeing of your batch-mates under your charge. They also deserve a portfolio)

Sustainability is key

A common thing that often CCA have is that good initiatives, or even good results cannot sustain, either because the knowledge isn’t passed down, or there isn’t simply enough members joining etc. The solution is actually simple, sustainability weights much more than securing a dominance in a competition, or simply lessening the extra effort in initiating new members to the scene. A lot of times, the decision makers like to make very blunt decision to just group those who are specialised together to increase chances of winning, and neglecting the need to encourage interaction between those who know more and those who are not proficient. And end up when these seniors left, the juniors are left with not much and have little means to help themselves.

Another possibility is that the good practices are not passed down simply because that seniors assume that it’s not an important skillset, or simply the juniors does not realise the importance in the good practices and initiatives.

If you realise that this happens, you probably failed the job to ensure that the CCA is sustainable. This isn’t a sole job of the teacher/mentor-in-charge. A successful CCA have both the teacher/mentor and the student leaders realising the need to keep the CCA running well. Just like maintenance of the transit system. You can’t expect the system to not breakdown if you decides to just pass the job and tick forms without actually performing necessary checks and preventive maintenance jobs.

Connection Matters

Another important thing for CCA leaders, especially for club and societies that often needs to go through administrative procedures such as booking venues or needing a lot of external support. Get along well with the Councils and important appointment holders around the school. This would lessen a lot of hassle when you need resources to get things done.