I'm off to the school's P&C meeting tonight. I'm always amazed at how few parents actually attend these informative and entertaining events. Nothing to do with the content, process or agenda of the meeting, of course. Rather, they're fabulously fun due to the little band of stalwarts who've been attending them since their first born lit up the school back in 1997. I swear some of these parents continued to have children just so their term on the 82 different P&C committees they run didn't have to come to an end...About committees...
I love those stalwarts, I really do. They're the core group of parents (usually less than 10 individuals) who run the canteen committee, the welcoming committee, the disco committee, the fundraising committee, the grounds committee, the uniform committee... the school, basically. Without them, our children would be attending school in a shed. (Thanks NSW Government!)
But what kind of person joins a million P&C committees in the first place?
I've been to the P&C. I've seen how fast those stalwarts put up their hands to join yet another committee. You've gotta be really, really quick on the up to beat them to the post. They want it. Oh, they'll saaaay they had to volunteer because no-one else put their hand up. But they want it.
I can only conclude (judging purely by the look of them and what they say in the meetings, mind) that they feel loved, needed and dare I say it, powerful. They are doing something that matters, for the children, for the community, for the world.
I love the P&C. It's a very entertaining place.