Thursday could be described by any of the following words: exciting,
frustrating, exhilarating, taxing, exhausting. We witnessed an unexpected level
of enthusiasm about the workshop, but we were unprepared for and overwhelmed by
the responsibilities that that enthusiasm brought about.
Unlike most RWC workshops, where things have settled into a routine by
the fourth day, this one presented a set of fourth-day challenges I’d never
faced before. Our three word-collection groups were too large on Wednesday, so
we launched a fourth one today. (This stretched our personnel really thin,
requiring Steve to run the recording equipment for the new group, which in turn
meant that I had to take care of all of the administrative details—signing
people in, registering new participants, recording which group took which
folder, when they brought it back, and so on. All that would have been easily
within my capabilities had we not experienced something totally unexpected.)
Word had apparently gotten out via the Crow grapevine overnight that an
exciting event was taking place at the Catholic Mission in Pryor, and many
more new participants showed up this morning. As the one handling the administrative
side of things, I accepted the first 8 or 10 of them, but I finally had to turn
the rest away, as our four groups were already well over the recommended size,
and they were crowded into the rooms they were working in. In the end, we had
two groups of 8 and two groups of 9 collecting words throughout the day. (I
have never had to turn prospective participants away from a RWC workshop
before, but the groups typically function best with 4-6 people; 8 or 9 usually
results in slower progress and lower productivity.)
The TLC director arrived mid-morning with some necessary supplies, and
I brought him up to speed on the situation. (He had to travel from Hardin to
Billings to trade in his rental car, which was having mechanical problems, then
do the shopping, then continue on to Pryor to drop off what we needed there,
then continue on to Little Big Horn College to deliver the lunchmeat, cheese,
etc. to feed the participants working there, so he was going non-stop all
morning. There are locations out here where cell-phone service is unavailable,
so my attempts to reach him by phone were unsuccessful, he being on the road
somewhere in one of those dead spots.) On his arrival, however, he confirmed that I had done the right
thing in turning people away—but maybe I should have made the decision to do
that a bit earlier than I had.
Some time after the TLC director had left, but before we broke for
lunch, I received a message from him, saying that he had decided that we needed
to decrease the number of participants for Friday. His orders were to select 4
or 5 from each group and invite them to come back in the morning. The others
were to leave their contact information so we could invite them to come in the
event that one or more of those chosen to continue could not come on a particular
day. So I met with the leader of each of the four groups, asking who they felt
were the most helpful people to keep on for the days to come. That was hard for
all of us, and it was decided that the most culturally appropriate way to
communicate the news to each one was for them to check with me as they signed
out for the day. So I found myself in the unenviable position of having to tell
many of the participants that they had not been invited back for Friday. But I
did ask each of them to leave a phone number where they could be reached, in
case we needed them sometime next week. There was much disappointment, and I’m
sorry to see them go—their enthusiasm was a wonderful thing. But at the same
time, I do think our groups will function more effectively tomorrow.
As expected as a result of the overpopulated groups, productivity
dropped off today—in spite of the fact that we had added a group—and we tallied
about 1,550 words for the day, bringing our total to 5,235. That means that
we’re already halfway to our goal of 10,000 words by the end of next week, so
that will be a piece of good news to report to the groups in the morning.
However, we’re still moving too slowly through all of the topics, and unless we
find a way to increase our pace, we will leave a significant number of them
untouched. This is a major concern to the TLC director, so I am doing my utmost
to help the groups move more quickly.
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