Organization Frustration

On Thursday, my brother told me that he was told at a youth meeting that it is really important for young people to go to the Working Parties (WP) so they have a voice. So I decided that I would attend the Presence and External Relations Working Party. I am one of many who feel that how Subud is seen to the world is important and if we want Subud to survive it must have a presence in the broader community. Unfortunately, my first experience in a WP was quite disappointing...because it was so frustrating.

We started with introductions: name, country and why you're attending this WP...pretty simple, pretty quick...it took over an hour for about 25 people to speak. HALF of the time alotted for the entire session was taken up by introductions. Some people decided to tell their life story, some people had an agenda and for some reason felt the introductions was an appropriate place to talk about it. Some people, after the previous person was asked to stop because of time, rambled on and on, apparently completely unaware of the fact that they were doing exactly what the previous person had done. I wanted to pull my hair out, or at least tell people to keep it short!

After introductions, the faciliators numbered us off and told us the question that we were to discuss...not so simple, some people didn't want to discuss that question. After about 45 minutes of discussion there were four questions that we generally agreed needed discussing. So, that left us with 15 minutes of discussion time! 15 minutes for the meat of the WP! We were supposed to come up with suggestions for the WSA Board to discuss and implement...HA! Oh well, I gave it a try.

What was frustrating for me was that 1. people didn't listen to instructions, instead were only concerned about their own agendas, 2. although the facilitators did cut people off (after about 10 minutes), there wasn't a more strict time and/or sentence limit, 3. nothing got done because everyone has the right to speak. I am coming from a science background, and a school where team work is a major part of the work load. I know it can be hard to work in a group, but when you have a time limit, you get things done...you don't talk about it and talk about it and end up left with no time to act. Discussion is important, but so is completing a task.

I must be fair however, the day I attended was the first of a four-part series. I couldn't go back on the following day because I had a prior commitment, so maybe there was more beneficial talk the next day. I hope so. I've generally avoided getting involved with Subud as an organization; I'm happy to do latihan, socialize and leave. But I also don't want Subud to disappear for lack of the next generation getting involved. To make these discussions more efficient and useful, we should implement a time or sentence limit: tell us why you are here in one minute/sentence. That's it...