Spencer Matheny - I commented on Group 1, 2, and 4's blog. I was in charge of the organizational structure and management feature. I was also the group leader for this assignment.
Mike Burks - I commented on Group 1, 2, and 4's blog. I was in charge of the actions portion of the assignment.
Mike Burks - I commented on Group 1, 2, and 4's blog. I was in charge of the actions portion of the assignment.
Organizing Adult and Community Education Programs
Spencer Matheny and Mike Burks
Ball State University
Introduction
In this assignment our group is
tasked with finding organizations and programs that are able to contribute
support to our effort to promote the Big Read 2015 in Muncie, Indiana and
assist us with putting on a workshop highlighting this year’s Big Read book, Fahrenheit 451. The Big Read is “A program of the National
Endowment for the Arts, The Big Read broadens our understanding of our world,
our communities, and ourselves through the joy of sharing a good book. Managed
by Arts Midwest, this initiative offers grants to support innovative community
reading programs designed around a single book” (The Big Read, 2015). In this paper we will tell you about the
programs and organizations that our group will be working with during this
project.
We have partnered
with, or are in contact, four different organizations that will be assisting us
during this project. First, we hope to
work with the downtown Muncie YMCA to assist us with informing people about our
workshop. We also will be working with
Integrity Fulfillment Services who has partnered with us for marketing our
workshop. They will be assisting us with
advertising materials needed to inform the public of our workshop. We have also partnered with Glad Tidings
Church in Muncie in which they have agreed to let our group host our workshop
at their location on South Burlington Drive on Tuesday, October 20 and may be
able to help with marketing our workshop.
Glad Tidings is a community partner with Sutton Elementary School and so
they have extended our promotion with them.
We will be able to market our workshop to the teachers and
administrative staff of Sutton Elementary.
Each one of these
organizations will play a key role in this project from getting the word out to
hosting the workshop. All of these
organizations are vitally important to their community by providing these
services to the community.
Organizational
Structure and Management Feature
The YMCA has four different
operating sites under its management. Three are in Delaware County and one is
in Blackford County (YMCA of Muncie, 2015). The specific site we have partnered with is the Downtown
Muncie site. Each site has an executive director who oversees all operations
day in and day out. Each site also has different activity directors and
administrators who oversee certain departments. This can be defined has having a set of functional managers that have expertise and oversee employees in one area of the organization (Hellriegel & Jackson, 2005). Then you have volunteer workers
who come in and work during those activities. The YMCA uses a mixture of
different mechanisms (Tompkins, 2005), which includes mutual adjustment,
standardization of worker skills, and standardization of values. They do not
necessarily use direct supervision because with the standardization of skills,
each worker is to know how to make decisions within his or her department.
Because there are so many divisions and sites, the local YMCA is a huge asset
for us to spread the work about the Muncie Big Read as well as our specific
workshop.
Integrity Fulfillment Services is a
local business that is ran through assembly line type of work. Its
administrative outlook consists of the President/CEO, and Operations Manager,
three Department Supervisors, and around 50 laborers. Each department works in
collaboration on a lot of projects so there are lots of times where everyone is
working with each other. The different mechanisms this company is ran by
includes direct supervision, standardization of process, and standardization of
outputs (Tompkins, 2005). Looking back at Weber's Theory of Bureaucracy, IFS uses a handful of different aspects from his ideal model of bureaucracy. These include fixed official duties, hierarchy of authority, system of rules, and written documentation (Tompkins, 2005). The supervisors, and sometimes the manager and CEO, directly supervise
the work that is being done and inspect the final products. As a whole, the entire organization must collaborate as a team to complete tasks. This can be seen as teamwork competency which includes designing teams, creating a supportive environment, and managing team dynamics (Hellriegel & Jackson, 2005). IFS is a company
that has many local clients through other organizations. They are able to
spread the word about the Big Read to a large group of people.
Glad Tidings in Muncie is a local
church on the south end of town. The administration consists of a head pastor,
associate pastors that are in charge of different departments, different
administrative workers, and members of the church. Each pastor has duties and
roles around the community where each of them visits different organizations to
help minister to weekly. I can see Glad Tidings having different motivational strategies to use as they run their church which include instrumental rewards, specifically considerate leadership, and goal congruence. Churches are all about leadership and each person has to take part and be a leader at some point. Churches usually have the same goal for as long as they are open and according to our text, goal congruence is defined as, "hiring employees whose goals and values are congruent with the organization's and/or socializing employees so that they internalize organizational goals and values," (Tompkins, 2005). They have roughly 800-900 members of the church and
that’s not including the people they meet with through other organizations
around the community. Not only can they help us market the Big Read but they
are allowing us to use their site to host our workshop. Glad Tidings is a
community partner with Sutton Elementary School and they have given us a lead
to market to them as well.
Sutton Elementary is located close
to Glad Tidings, on 12th/Memorial Street in Muncie. They are set up
like a regular school system: Principle, administrators, teachers, and
students. We thought maybe we could give them flyers to post in the school for
parents to see and for administrators and teachers to see.
We like to look at these organizations and look at them in a compare and contrast concept to adult education organizations. All of these organizations have the main roles of planning, organizing, leading, staffing and controlling, but when it comes to adult education, programming an organization might be the biggest role their is for managers (Adult Learning). However, with that being the biggest role you still have to have functions such as financing, staffing, and marketing to go along with the primary function of all organizations with planning, organizing, and evaluating (Kasworm, Rose, & Ross-Gordon). The organizations mentioned above work in similar ways. They know how to meet individual needs. However, that's something that an adult educator has as a challenge. We have talked before in class how adult education is so broad you can't really define it into one concept. When we, as adult educators, are working with the community, it can be difficult trying to meet individual needs because we have to adapt to different organizations and how they work with the community (Deggs & Miller, 2011).
We like to look at these organizations and look at them in a compare and contrast concept to adult education organizations. All of these organizations have the main roles of planning, organizing, leading, staffing and controlling, but when it comes to adult education, programming an organization might be the biggest role their is for managers (Adult Learning). However, with that being the biggest role you still have to have functions such as financing, staffing, and marketing to go along with the primary function of all organizations with planning, organizing, and evaluating (Kasworm, Rose, & Ross-Gordon). The organizations mentioned above work in similar ways. They know how to meet individual needs. However, that's something that an adult educator has as a challenge. We have talked before in class how adult education is so broad you can't really define it into one concept. When we, as adult educators, are working with the community, it can be difficult trying to meet individual needs because we have to adapt to different organizations and how they work with the community (Deggs & Miller, 2011).
Actions
The first organization we have is the
downtown Muncie YMCA. The YMCA reaches out to the community in many ways. We
believe this is a perfect choice to have partner with us. One way the YMCA
supports community is by organizing day trips for active adults. Here they go
to museums, mystery dinners, and many other informational activities. It would
be great if we could get approved for them to put our Big Read workshop on that
activity list. This would greatly help us get eager and willing people into the
workshop.
The YMCA also teaches yoga classes, swim
classes, and they even have scuba diving classes. This means there are several
hundred people moving in and out of the building every day. As a group, we
thought this would be a good idea to ask them to pass out flyers to the people
visiting the building and tell the people about the Big Read program. This will
be very important to our group because this is one of the biggest organizations
that agreed to help us. We believe reaching out to as many people as possible
is our best bet in getting people who want to learn to come to our workshop.
The next place we were able to get
partnered with is a business called Integrity Fulfillment Services. IFS is a
company that isn’t too far away from the downtown YMCA. IFS packages and ships
goods for Jarden Home Brands and Ardagh Group. They used to only average about
20 or so workers for a day, but now they are running at 50 workers a day and
still expanding. The owner, Brad, believes in enriching the community and
helping people locally. He is a prime partner to have because he holds on to
these core values that make him a successful businessman. IFS can help with the
marketing aspect of our Big Read workshop due to that Brad is also part owner
of a print shop. We will be able to have IFS print off our flyers and posters
that we create at a reasonable price. They can then put up those flyers and
have people talk to their families about coming to learn. We will be able to
reach out to at least 50 people at IFS. We are hoping each employee goes out
and tells more members of the community about the workshop. If each worker
tells one person, then we have reached 100 people. If we can get people to
spread the word about the Big Read workshop, we would have reached more fellow
community members than we ever thought possible.
The last main organization partnered with
us for the Big Read is Glad Tidings Church located on the South side of Muncie.
This church is very community-minded and is always willing to help out. Every
year they provide free backpacks, shoes, eye checkups, and fun activities for
their “Back to School Bash” for Sutton Elementary (Muncie Glad Tidings, 2015). With Glad Tidings, we can
put our Big Read workshop in the bulletin that goes out every Sunday. They also
have many other ways to reach out to the community, which includes a mailing
service that mails information out to the congregation, an email service for
those who prefer email, and a digital sign right off State Road 67. These
assets will prove to be very vital in our Big Read workshop advertising
strategy. Glad Tidings has a congregation of around 800 to 900. We obviously do
not expect everyone to come, but with that many people we hope a small
percentage will.
Glad Tidings was also generous enough to
let us use one of their meeting facilities. We will have two options to choose
from. They have a recently renovated building called Conaway Hall. This is a
very nice facility with Televisions, tables, and even a kitchen to the side to
serve refreshments if we desire to have them. The other building is called the
Fellowship Center. This might be our better option because it is easier to see
from the road. The Fellowship Center has a kitchen to serve from as well. If we
host our workshop in the Fellowship Center, we can post signs on the road
advertising the Big Read. The map below shows how we will lay out the room we
are in when we do the workshop.
Each desk can hold 7-8 people. We are
expecting from 35 to 40 people. There is room for additional tables if needed.
Additionally, Glad Tidings gave us a lead
for Sutton Elementary School. We will also go there to drop off flyers for
teachers, administration, and whoever else would want one. Here, the
possibilities are endless. We are hoping to get the teachers excited to bring
their families and hopefully more. The end goal here is to reach out to the
students’ families who will be coming into the school. Since they all live very
close to Glad Tidings, it will be easy for them to come and learn. They could
even walk so they would not even need to spend money on gas to get there.
As you can see, our main goal is to reach
as many people as possible with these organizations. Each one has a very
specific part in helping make our workshop a success. We also asked
organizations and companies from many different parts of Muncie. The YMCA and
IFS are downtown while Sutton and Glad Tidings are on the South side of Muncie.
We believe reaching different people with different backgrounds is important,
because everyone could use to read a little more.
Reflection
This assignment/portion of the
project is a huge step for our class. This is the point to where we get to find
out who will be working with us and what we will have to offer for our
workshop. Even though a lot of organizations are turning us down, that’s
expected. When you are finding an organization, reassure them that any way they
can help is a huge benefit. If you are asking something big of them and they
can’t offer it, ask them, “Do you mind if we hang flyers up at your
organization to help spread the word?” That right there is a huge benefit for
all of us and The Big Read. One thing that we find unique and interesting is
that the organizations we are working with are completely different. That’s
exciting because we get to utilize these organizations is different ways. We
completed this assignment according to our role schedule on our group plan.
Each of us had an assigned section of the paper and we all collaborated on
obtaining different organizations. With this type of project, you want to make
sure you have dates set up in your mind/what you want to accomplish.
Organizations look for that to see how organized you are in trying to
accomplish those goals.
Names
of the Muncie Organizations which can support the Big Read
|
Organizational
Structure and Management features of these organizations
|
Main
ideas of the organization/management theories which reflect the features of
Muncie organizations
|
Action:
How can we utilize Muncie Organizations to support the Big Read based on the
features of their organization structure/their management features?
|
|
1
|
YMCA
|
Four sites,
Executive Directors, Administrators, Activity Directors, Volunteer workers,
etc.
|
Mutual
Adjustment, Standardization of worker skills, Standardization of values
|
Possibly
donating packages to use as incentives for our workshop. Allowing us to put
up flyers.
|
2
|
Integrity
Fulfillment
Services
|
CEO,
Operations Manager, Supervisors, Laborers
|
Direct
Supervision, Standardization of process, Standardization of output,
Standardization of Values
|
Printing off
our flyers and posters. Helping promote through their organization.
|
3
|
Glad
Tidings Church
|
Head Pastor,
Associate Pastors, Administrators, Members
|
Mutual
Adjustment, Standardization of worker skills, Standardization of values
|
Allowing us to
use their site for our workshop. Promoting our workshop through their
congregation.
|
4
|
Sutton
Elementary
|
Principle,
Administrators, Teachers, Students
|
Mutual
Adjustment, Standardization of worker skills, Standardization of values
|
Promoting our
workshop through their administrators and teachers
|
References
Adult Learning, v.4 (4) March/April 1993, 13-14, 30.
Deggs, D., & Miller, M. (2011). Developing Community Expectations: The Critical Role of Adult Educators. Adult Learning, 25-30.
Hellriegel, D., & Jackson, S. (2005). Management: A competency-based approach (10th ed.). Mason, Ohio: Thomson/South-Western.
Kasworm, C., Rose, A. and J. Ross-Gordon. "Handbook of Adult and Continuing Education."
2010. Sage: Los Angeles, CA. 177-186: 493
Kasworm, C., Rose, A. and J. Ross-Gordon. "Handbook of Adult and Continuing Education."
2010. Sage: Los Angeles, CA. 177-186: 493
Muncie Glad Tidings. (2015). Retrieved September 28, 2015.
The Big Read. (2015). About the Big Read. Retrieved September
19, 2015, from http://www.neabigread.org/about.php.
Tompkins, J. (2005). Organization theory and public management. Australia: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.
YMCA OF MUNCIE. (2015). Retrieved September 28, 2015, from http://www.muncieymca.org/about-the-ymca/locations/
