On Blizzards, Real and Metaphorical

As the 2019-20 Leadership Richmond - Youth Now program winds down, we're publishing a series of blog posts, giving this year's participants - six in all - a chance to reflect on what they've learned and how they've grown.

Today's post comes courtesy of Jackson Kemmis, who, through Youth Now, was matched with the Richmond Women's Resource Centre, where he's serving as a board member.

Jackson charts his progression in the program, comparing Youth Now, at first, to a calm meadow, until he realizes, as the work and responsibilities pile up, that it's more like a swirling blizzard. 

The good news is that he's almost through the storm and, as you'll see, he's gained some valuable skills and insights along the way.

After Sydney, our Program Manager, had told me I would be part of Youth Now, and after she had listed the various projects that I would undertake, she reminded me that things would really pick-up after January, fast. I smiled, shrugged it off, and we moved on. Then January came.

Thank God there was a quasi-blizzard in the middle of the month, or I might not have had time to finish up the piles of work I’d committed myself to.

From September to December, if you join the Youth Now program, you’ll probably feel you’re in the midst of a calm meadow, enjoying the breeze and fresh air as you metaphorically learn to play the bongos and have long conversations about Robert’s Rules and board etiquette. This time is nice. You get to meet the other Youth Now members as you sip coffee and eat Timbits and play various activities.

It’s not as if any of those things go away once January hits; it’s just that they become a sort of pleasant escape from the other blizzard, the metaphorical one, the one that Sydney had told me about.

You wake up in January and realize you’ve only briefly thought about your board project, let alone having any concrete plans, haven’t engaged in a serious discussion about how you will pull off the group project, and haven’t been keeping up with your responsibilities as a board mentee since you were stuffing your face with chocolates over Christmas break.

All that, not to mention your other responsibilities and chores, including school projects, other volunteer commitments, part-time work, and finding your darn keys for the fifth time today.

As we approach February, I think I’ve started to get a handle on things. I’ve started to generate ideas and concrete plans for my board project, the group has set-aside time to discuss our group project, and I’ve slowly fulfilled my responsibilities as a member of the Richmond Women’s Resource Centre board.

Youth Now has pressured me into becoming much more organized in both my professional and daily life in a way that school hasn’t.

Not to say that I wasn’t organized before. I was organized enough to do my school projects on time and get to work on time, but once you start to have larger, more independent commitments that take months to plan and involve multiple people, you realize that you need to be organized in a completely different way than you did in university.

More so than a semester abroad or work in the co-op program through my university, Youth Now’s stress on independence and leadership has (I think) thus far led to immense self-improvement.

And if you’re like me, even the January blizzard is fun, albeit stressful. At least you’ve always got something to do.

Leadership Richmond - Youth Now is funded by the Government of Canada's Canada Service Corps and Coast Capital Savings.