Broadcasting Life

prez andi: the evil emailer!

if there has been one thing i have learned in life, it's this: i would rather not cause conflict. in the end, it is always easier if i just suck it up and do whatever that needs to be done myself because i do not like to deal with conflict. i also do not like to put people in their place or tell them how it should be or just tell them that they are wrong. but i had to do that. i usually believe that everyone is doing what they need to do and they have a reason for what they are doing...did you follow that? let's try phrasing it this way: if someone is doing something that i don't approve of, or i consider it something that i wouldn't do, i believe they are probably doing what ever it is they are doing for a good reason.

anyway, i had to write an email to the "big" habitat president, who is a friend of mine (he got me my coaching job), and tell him that we were frustrated with the "big" habitat's efforts. i was later told it was harsh...which is not what i want. i'm slightly scared now. here's the email i sent; you can judge it:

Hi Tim,

The reason I am writing this is to tell you that we are going to put off the benefit concert for now. There are a couple reasons for this. One being that the concert is too close and that we are still uncertain of many things. The other reason is because we wanted to raise money for Dennis and Evelyn's roof together with the "Big Habitat" and we feel that we, the "Little Habitat," are doing most of the work.

We wanted to "Raise the Roof" with Big Habitat this year as to bring us closer together. Both the Big and Little Habitat get credit on our year end reports if we can say that we have worked together. In the past years, as far as I can tell, both of us haven't done much work together. This year we thought that we could change that. We thought that doing the benefit concert together we be good for both organizations and for the city. We have enthusiasm to put this concert together, but we weren't quite feeling the same enthusiasm from you. I would come away from the Big Habitat's meetings with ideas but without sure committment on your part. I would then proceed to the Little Habitat meetings only to find more questions and the members overwhelmed and frustrated with what we still had to do. We felt that we were being put in the spot of putting on the Benefit concert for you, but what we wanted was to put on the Benefit concert with you.

We would still like to put on an event with the Big Habitat so that we can help "raise the roof." We would like to know if there is possibly another date that would work better with the Big Habitat. A date that was mentioned was possibly the 24th of April. We also had talk that we could possibly do it at a church, possibly First Lutheran. It depends on if we want to rely on the elders in the community to bring in the money or if we want to (in Lois's words) "have a rompin' time." Some ideas that have come up would be to do an event at the Uptown Cafe, possibly having Carolyn help sponsor? There was also talk of having Sammy come and play there.

We are really looking forward to doing an event with you. As I mentioned to the Little Habitat, this isn't a "us" and a "them" event; it's a "we." Hopefully the Big Habitat will feel the same?

Thank you so much for your help and time!

Andi

square told me i sounded to harsh. the last thing i want is for them to think i'm some sort of ungratelful person...i hate doing these sort of things because the last time i "put someone in their place" i ended up upsetting my mother and myself and i went home from school with an upset stomach wondering if i would ever live. it was a horrible day. now i have to see the big habitat on wednesday...should be fun... :(