Challenge Your Audience Without Losing Some of Them

By Lawrence Tomei

Envision two chapter meetings being held simultaneously in adjoining meeting rooms. The first is a regularly scheduled Tuesday night session with no rules interpreter, no mechanics coach, no assigning secretary and no agenda. Most members have forgotten (or long since lost) their rulebook and casebook. There is a board but someone forget to bring the chalk. Stragglers show up 10 minutes late and the session begins with a raucous debate of whatever rules and mechanics questions are of interest at the moment. Someone calls the meeting to order, another member scribbles down the makings of an impromptu training session and the meeting ends when everyone agrees they have had enough for one night. In the past, that chapter may have had exceptional meetings, but not today.

The second meeting next door is what we see much more often. Members are in their seats and the meeting begins at the appointed time. The chapter president reviews old business and entertains any new agenda items — all within the first 10 minutes. The meeting is turned over to the designated program director for a 30-minute rules interpretation session followed by a 15-minute interactive discussion of several new mechanics recently adopted by the conference. Robert’s Rules of Order are followed, members are courteous with their inputs and comments, and feedback and discussion is highly encouraged.

Both groups will learn technical and mechanical skills tonight. But they will certainly differ in the quality of the experience. Any learning by the first group is probably accidental or incidental at best. The second group is directed by professionals who demonstrate proper technique, explain the underlying tactics and rationale, and have earned the attention of the group.

Educators have known for a long time that classrooms are as varied as the students in them. Chapter training meetings include novice as well as veteran officials. Association leaders do not want to lose any members when they conduct those all-important training sessions. Too complex and you can lose the first-year officials; too simple and the veterans drift off to thoughts of next week’s games. Here are 10 suggestion help ensure that no official is left behind.

1. Determine the training needs of your members. Challenge your members to propose ideas for training topics by email or phone calls. If possible, that should be done before the session begins. Ensure that each member shares in the responsibilities for a successful meeting.
2. Find appropriate teaching resources and materials. Challenge your members to suggest film clips, videos, guest speakers, magazine articles, etc. as training materials. Ask them to bring in materials they feel would benefit the membership.
3. Challenge every member with new information sometime during each session. Present rules and mechanics that describe simple to complex, general to specific, and easy to more difficult situations and rules so that all members, regardless of their experience level, can gain from the training.
4. Challenge your veteran officials to mentor first-year newcomers. Give them time to work one-on-one with the newest members of the chapter as well. That will not only prepare your junior members for the game, but keep them in your chapter.
5. Challenge seasoned officials to contribute to the training meeting. Remember that each member, regardless of seniority or experience, brings knowledge and experiences that can be of tremendous value to the group.
6. Challenge your members with a focused quiz at the beginning of a meeting/season. That can help determine the level of instruction needed to bring everyone up to the same level of understanding about the rules/mechanics. Do not use the quiz to embarrass members (especially veterans) if you expect them to embrace that teaching technique in future meetings.
7. Challenge members with a warmup activity. For example, show a short clip and ask members to identify infractions or good mechanics. Or, ask a more veteran official to present a short bio of their officiating career so newer members can get to know his or her counterparts.
8. Challenge your members to share resources. Upload clips from games and archive digital audio of meetings to chapter websites for those who cannot attend or have already met their required number of meetings. Share those resources among other chapters to increase your own inventory of situational videos.
9. Conduct a mechanics session on the field/court. That is a good practice especially early in the season. Challenge members to re-enact situations they encountered either on the field, witnessed personally or viewed during a televised game.
10. Continue to experiment with different types of instruction to find the ones that work best. Vary the use of resources (visual, audio, lectures, discussions, etc.) Challenge your members to remain attentive and critique the outcomes to make the meeting more productive for all members.

There’s an old adage in classroom parlance. It goes like this: We remember 10 percent of what we read, 20 percent of what we hear, 30 percent of what we see, 50 percent of what we see and hear, 70 percent of what we discuss with others, 80 percent of what we personally experience and 95 percent of what we teach others. To keep meetings challenging and interesting to your members, discourage reading from a rulebook. Consider using more visual materials (e.g., videos, whiteboards and handouts). Allow time for discussions based on real experiences recalled by members of your own chapter. Persuade others to tackle the responsibility of teaching a rule or mechanic — but give them ample time to prepare.

Creating a challenging meeting depends on adequate preparation. Repeatedly offering your members what appears to be a “pickup” rules meeting will result in reduced attendance and uninterested participants. Show your members that you value their time, appreciate their attendance and respect their knowledge and experience as an official.

Lawrence Tomei is the vice provost for academic affairs at Robert Morris University in Pittsburgh. He has been a member of the West Penn Football Officials Association since 1994 and its president since 2013.