Passing the Torch

By Lyn Fiscus

As the end of the school year looms on the horizon, inevitably feelings on the part of students of excitement about graduation or moving up a grade are accompanied by thoughts on the part of student activity advisors of starting over. It’s an endless cycle we educators face – just as we begin to reap the harvest of all the leadership training and trial-by-error learning we’ve invested in our student leaders, they move on to other things. If handled carefully though, the transition from one officer group to another can leave behind the seeds that will sprout into another group of capable leaders. Follow these tips to ensure a successful officer transition:

Officer Notebooks. To perform a job well, the person responsible for doing it must know what it entails. Create a written job description for every officer and committee chair to ensure that each person understands the responsibilities of the job. Include these descriptions as one of the items in an officer notebook for each of the positions your group has. Other items could include a calendar for the year, a directory of member information, a copy of the constitution and bylaws, committee information, a list of usual projects, samples of standard forms such as purchase orders and announcement requests, and an “if I knew then what I know now” letter from the previous officer with tips on how to do the job.  Officers can add meeting minutes, committee reports, and other info to the notebook as the year proceeds and it will become a valuable record of the group’s activities.

Organizational Files. Outgoing officers should take some time to go through the organization’s files and make sure they are as complete as possible. For example, the secretary should ensure that a complete file of all meeting minutes exists, the treasurer’s report should be up to date and accurately reflect the group’s finances, and so forth.

Officer Meeting. Once your officer notebooks and files are prepared, schedule a meeting between outgoing officers and new officers. Some advisers use this as a time to take the officer team out to dinner, to thank the outgoing officers and as a way to kick off the year for the new officers on a special note. At this meeting, the outgoing officers should meet one-on-one with their incoming counterpart to go over the job description, describe what their job entails on a day-to-day basis, and go over the files and the procedures that are unique to their office.

Staff Introductions. Active student leaders come to know a great many people in the school system throughout the course of their duties—the principal, school secretaries, Web manager, school bookkeeper, custodial managers, food services director, public relations manager, and so forth. It’s helpful to have the veteran officers take the new officers around and introduce them to these contacts. They can also pass along tips for dealing with the various people involved that are best not written down.

Pomp and Circumstance. The transition from one officer group to another won’t be complete without some public acknowledgement of the transfer of power. An officer installation ceremony—complete with an oath of office—at an assembly, banquet, or awards ceremony will officially pass the torch and designate the new officers as the “go to” leaders of your group. Consider giving the new officers some tangible token of their new status—an officer pin or necklace, business cards, or a keychain with your group’s name or emblem. Invite the administrators, faculty members who work with your group, and parents to attend the ceremony to lend their authority to the group and affirm the importance of the officers’ work.

Careful preparations such as these on the part of the adviser and officers before the end of the year will leave your organization primed to reap the harvest of these efforts in a new school year.

Lyn Fiscus is a former leadership teacher, student activities advisor, and editor of Leadership for Student Activities magazine. She currently manages Leadership Logistics, a company she founded in 2004, which provides writing, editing, training, and consulting services to support positive youth development.You can e-mail her at lyn@alliance4studentactivities.org.