Communications: Highland Games and Group Essay examples

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Some nineteen or so years ago, I watched a movie that would change my life forever. A small group of friends and I went to see Braveheart. The impact of that movie is still very much a part of who I am today. As a result of seeing the movie my friends and I became increasingly more curious about how we each fit into the Scottish culture. Through a search of my family tree I was proud to discover that I was a descendent of the clan McCleod. Armed with this new found knowledge I set out to discover all that I could about my heritage. Along the way a group of friends and I discovered the tradition of hosting a Highland Games Festival. The first year after being made aware of this concept we all travelled to Portland Oregon, home of one of the oldest festivals in the North West. We were captivated by the festival and especially by the heavy athletic events, where athletes participate in ancient highland athletic competitions. These events included the tossing of stones, sheaf toss, and the very popular caber toss. We came home determined to host such a festival here in the Treasure Valley. Five friends, myself included, formed a group. The text book discusses shared identity, ours was that we all were either of Scottish decent or we at least shared a passion for Scottish culture. We all shared a common goal, which was to form and host a Highland Games and Scottish Festival. The book speaks of independent relationships, as a group we were unified in one goal, but individually we each had our own loves and passions for different aspects of our cultural heritage. For example, one person was very fond of the music of the Highlands, another had a love for Highland Dance, and I and one other were fascinated by the athletics. These different passions served our group well since the entire festival is made up of all of these things and more. We soon learned that organizing a community event on such a large scale would not be easy. We also soon learned that it is a fairly costly endeavor. Our first task as a group was to obtain “non-profit status with the confines and rules of our local government. We needed to obtain a business license and to do so we had to first organize our group which had to have a President, a Vice President, a Secretary, and a Treasurer. The latter two were easy to fulfill since we already had members who were naturally gifted in these areas. Our first conflict arose when it came time to name a President and a Vice President. During our storming stage we were challenged with how we would go about choosing our President and VP. There were conflicting ideas on who should be appointed, and on how to appoint one. After much debate we decided a vote would be the fairest way to choose our leaders. The outcome was exactly what most of us had hoped for. Our leader was knowledgeable and he happed to own a local business that would very quickly become the hub of our organization as well as contribute for many years to its success. We decided as a group that it would take a year to prepare to launch our first event. During that year we met on a regular basis, and we brought in more members. True to what the text book says as our group increased in members the complexity of our communication took a turn. It was pretty easy to make decisions and agree on things when we were a small group of only five members. As we brought in more members to form committees we opened up the doors of communication to more and differing ideas. Simple decisions became harder to make as more opinions were now a part of the discussions as well as the decision making process. It did not take long however for our group members to naturally fall into individual task roles. We had a diverse group who each brought their unique talents to the table. I did not of course recognize it then but after reading chapter 9 I can easily recognize our information givers, information seekers, elaborators, and my
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