4 Community-Building Steps Towards Building a Thriving Program

Creating a program that has the potential to thrive for years to come depends on the leaders you build. The cool thing is, you don’t just have to train the students you think have the most “potential.” You can train your whole group, including your families, on responsibility and teamwork with a few extra steps to your season. 

1. Create “crews” to share responsibilities. 

To encourage ownership of the season, allow as many members to take part in the logistics as possible. One way I do this in my groups, no matter the age is to create “crews” for responsibilities instead of giving jobs to one person. Some examples of teams could be: 

• Technology crew (music, speakers, etc.)
• Uniform crew (ensuring they are taken care of)
• Equipment crew (you can break these up if you have a large team)
• Spirit crew (have students put together surveys to determine spirit days for long rehearsal days or show days)
• Pick up crew (ensure people are cleaning up after themselves)
• Guard or Season box crew (always making sure they are checking the inventory of the things in your seasonal box with bandages, extra items, tape, etc)
• Gas Crew (students responsible for always pumping up their teammates -you know we all have those students who are naturally good at this! I call it “gassing someone up” so you are fueling their day!)

2. Give more information at the beginning of your season and slowly delegate things to the team. 

The most important thing to remember is your members cannot read your mind…no matter how much you want them to. Training an excellent team does take a lot of front-loading.

For example, give them a specific list of things they need to bring to a show day and post it before the first show. For the second show, tell them this is the last time you will post the list and hope to see others make reminders the next weekend. Be watching your group to see who gave reminders for the third show! Give that student notes on how to be more encouraging or detailed.

The more you train and influence your group, the better off the last half of your season will be! 

3. Find out the interests of your members outside of your team. 

I asked her to make the locker signs the next few weekends. I saw an immediate change in her reactions toward me and her teammates. This allowed her to have some responsibility that she enjoyed while working hard and feeling heard and seen. 

4. Involve families as much as possible. 

Sending weekly emails, encouraging families to host group get-togethers, or even reaching out to families and knowing when big life events are happening are great ways to stay engaged with them helps bring a family atmosphere to your groups. 

• My weekly Sunday emails usually include at least 1 tip for my new parents. These tips can include: make-up and undergarment information, how a show day actually works (other than just sending the schedule… what will the day look like for them as parents?), when to clap for other groups, or even how to engage with different groups of people at shows!
  
  These parent tips are a great way to spread out the season information and have your parent group feel as prepared as possible. They help parents get a good look at what the next few weeks will look like and give lots of communication. 
  
• Delegating the task of outside group hangouts is a relief. When parents feel empowered to host group Christmas parties or after-show sleepovers/dinners, your team will feel closer and it will take this off of your plate! 
  
• Finally, take the time to know what your families are dealing with at home. Whether that is a death in the family, a sickness, a new birth, or even a promotion… genuinely getting to know your group and taking the time to reach out makes a HUGE difference in the longevity of your group. Getting to know them also reinforces the type of good-human traits you want to be training: kindness, compassion, and being genuine. We need more of those people in the world. Lead by example. 
  
  **Remember, you do not need to be best friends with these people**
  It’s important to not blur the line of professionalism. It is important that you are training more than just your members, but your families as well! The outside support of your program can make or break a team. I have experienced both supportive and unsupportive parents. Can you guess which group I engaged in with the most? That is a responsibility on YOU. Not just them. 

Now, I will say, it will not always be sunshine and roses. As a coach, you need to make hard decisions based on what is best for the team and can’t make everyone happy. That is necessary to build a strong program. Holding people accountable, including yourself, is important. However, an important rule and proven fact you should live your life by: it takes 7 positive interactions with someone to diminish 1 negative interaction. To build leaders and a thriving program, you must keep this in mind. 

These steps will not only allow you to create buy-in to the vision you have for your ensemble, but will also build a solid team and train our future generations to be supportive teammates, encouraging leaders, and productive members of society.