The First Meeting

Last year as I was cast under some spell, I agreed to co-lead a group of cub scouts.
Last night was our first meeting of the year. My neighbor / co-leader had a meeting at work, leaving me to lead this group.

The week leading up to this put me through a few emotions. Denial, joy, and anger were three that flew through my body.

The meeting was to last an hour, so I sat down to prepare. I flipped through the cub scout book and wrote down an agenda. I had enough notes to last roughly an hour.

Last night Cari came to the meeting to help me out. She was sure this would be entertaining. I also begged her for assistance.

Thirty minutes into my meeting and I had finished my agenda. I started sweating. I looked behind me and saw all the parents watching me lead their children. I smiled a nervous smile at them and looked back to the kids. Cari was serving the snack and stood beside me when she finished. I whispered, "I'm done."

She looked up and me like she didn't hear me.
"I don't have anything else.", I told her.
In my head, I started freaking out, "Where was my friggin' co-leader?!?!". I glanced back at the parents and whispered to Cari, "There is still twenty minutes."

Cari was calm and collected about it. Then again, she wasn't wearing the brown boy scout shirt. "I've got some ideas", she said so calmly.
"What have you got?", I asked her.
She smiled and looked down at the boys, "I'm not sure, but I'll think of something."

In three minutes, the boys would be finishing snack and I had to be ready to entertain.
I went inside and gave the parents a smile. "Oh yeah, I got this group under control. You better believe I came prepared for this, I was a Boy Scout once too", I thought to myself. I picked up the cub scout book and started reading.

I finished the meeting with a few things from the book and was able to generally hold the boys' attention. Cari did give me another idea, but I didn't have to use it last night. I'm holding that in reserve.

After the meeting one of the parents who is a leader for the older boys told me I had a good meeting. I kinda laughed at that comment. I felt like I had just barely made it.

I just looked over my work schedule and noticed that our next meeting I will have to be at work. Guess it's my co-leaders turn. I sure hope he prepares a longer agenda than I did.