National Junior Honor Society Reflection

Back in middle school, I was a part of National Junior Honor Society (NJHS). We were the largest class to be inducted into NJHS. Being such a large class meant we would have to raise a lot of money if we expected to reach our goal. Our goal was to raise enough money for our trip to the Lead Conference at Washington, D.C. Only one NJHS chapter before us had raised enough money to go all the way to Washington, D.C. We were determined to reach that same goal, but things don't always go as planned. As a member of NJHS, it was clear to me that it was my responsibility to maintain the 90 and above minimum grade requirement placed by NJHS membership. To me this minimum requirement was the least of my worries, but for some members it was more than a worry. On the first grade check, about 12 of our members were placed on probation due to low grades. Our NJHS advisers worked with those on probation while the rest of us worked on our fundraisers. We were working towards a common goal, so things were moving smoothly those first few weeks. Members were showing up for meetings, suggesting ideas, and signing up to help out on events, but things soon changed. When the second grade check came by, we lost a few members, while a few more were placed on probation. We knew this could happen, losing membership, but we were not quite prepared to deal with this. Things also got a bit rough. Some of our events turned out little profit, and we started seeing less members showing up to the meetings. With more members on probation, things were not looking good. At this point I wasn’t happy and neither were the other members. I felt like there was more pressure and responsibility on the remaining members to meet the goal and keep things running. Yet we were still optimistic, so as a group we continued working to reach our goals. Sadly we were not prepared for the third, and last grade check right before the semester ended. When we had our first meeting after that last grade check, we were really in for a good laugh, out of surprise that is. We were down to just a little more than half of our original members. Even one of our elected officials had not made the cut. That’s when things got worse. We were not organized at this point anymore, and some of our remaining members were starting to let this affect …show more content…
We really needed those new members. They brought with them a positive attitude to the whole situation. I could see then we were giving in too easily, but that did not mean we could make miracles happen. I’d love to say, “And with their help we raised enough money for everyone to go to Washington D.C, and we had a blast,” but that not exactly what happened. The new members and the old members all came to the same conclusion that a trip to D.C was too expensive and in the end only a few members would be able to go with what we raised. Our options were clear, if we wanted the most number of members to go to the Lead Conference we would have to change our destination. Chicago, Illinois. The second favorite destination from the start, so it wasn’t much of downgrade. That and more members could actually afford it. So in the end I can say that we did, at least, have a