especially for commissioners... CALLAHAN'S LEGACY By Robert E. Banes

ROBERT E. BANES

One day, when I was growing up in the outskirts of Rockford, my next door neighbor observed me stealthily creeping up to a blossom-ladened bush with forefinger and thumb poised to grip a Monarch butterfly at the precise moment the unsuspecting creating folded its wings. A few days later he brought me a capped fruit jar with cyanide encased in plaster of paris.

This good neighbor was a recreation program person, although neither he nor I were conscious of that at the time. He was employed through the WPA (the depression alternative to CETA) to conduct craft programs at our local park site. For me, the gift of a fruit jar was an initiation to the joys of butterfly collecting. It was also the beginning of a life-long association with the Recreation and Park movement, an introduction to recreation as a positive force in creating quality in one's life.

I look back on that brief encounter now and realize that today I am a product of several successive environments, each of which were rich in the basic philosophies of recreation — that of having an experience which is fulfilling, which has personal benefit, and which causes one to feel good about oneself.

One of these strong influences was the Rockford Boy's Club, led by men with names like "Ossie" and "Heinie" and "Cally" Callahan. Men who believed that a strong body and a strong mind produced the emotional stability that enabled the individual to return to the community more than was taken. Those men and a host of other volunteers instilled in me a life-long appreciation of recreation and leisure services.

I can still recall the gist of Callahan's words at the closing campfire at Camp Rotary: "We grow by being nourished by others. Don't ever forget that it is by the efforts of others that we have what we do today. We have an obligation to give as good as we get — to pass on to the next fellow some of the benefits we enjoy. Boys, what I want you to take from this week at camp is a commitment to serve your community, wherever that may be, and in whatever capacity you are best suited. God does not ask that we all serve in the same way, nor share time and money in the same amount, nor give of ourselves on an equal basis. What is asked, is that each of you act in such a manner that when you sit around the final campfire of life, the world is a better place because you have not used, rather you have re-created."

It was the first time I had heard the word recreation used in its pure sense of re-creating.

Forty years have trudged by since those boyhood days. High school, World War II, college, job, family — and the obligation bequeathed by Callahan and the other volunteers.

Through the years I have responded to a need to assure a return on their investment in me. As a volunteer in Parks and Recreation, I have at various times participated with other parents in the baseball, football, swimming, camping activities of the local athletic groups. Expanding on that participation, I became involved in committees, advisory commissions and area-wide special districts, which led full circle to the State and National Recreation and Park Associations, where, as a boy, I had started out as a beneficiary.

I feel I am at a point where, as a recreator, I can return something of this investment and, like the Callahans of my life, add in an indirect manner to the quality of life of others.

During the next few issues of this magazine, I will be sharing with you some of what I have learned through the past thirty years of

Robert E. (Bob) Banes has been a layman in thepark and recreation movement for more than thirty years. He has served as an advisory commissioner for the City of Norwalk, Calif, and as an elected board member of a special recreation district. He is past president of the California Association of park and recreation districts, founding president of the California Association of Recreation Boards & Commissions; past president of the National Park & Recreation Commissioners/Board Members Branch, and is currently a member of the Board of Trustees, NRPA.

He is a partner in a mangement consulting firm specializing in management development and organization effectiveness.

Illinois Parks and Recreation 8 July/August, 1979

involvement as a non-professional recreation person, which has been my avocation rather than vocation. I plan to discuss Board Member roles, responsibilities and moral obligations. The subject matter will include the philosophy of leisure services, planning, orientation, participation in State/National affiliates, and other topics.

As an introduction, I will share with you what I feel is the most difficult concept a Board Member policy-setter has to understand. That is the difference between being a representative and being a legislator.

When we become a member of a policy-setting board or commission, we do so because we are elected by a group of taxpayers, or we are appointed by a governing body, or we are asked to serve because we represent a certain viewpoint, or we invite ourselves because we have a special interest.

As a result, when we join the other members of the policy-setting group, we do rightly represent our constituencies, we express and explain their viewpoint, discuss their concerns, and talk about their desires. In that role we are representatives. The input does indeed come from a specific segment of the population.

But being a representative is only the initial input responsibility of that position. The Board Member cannot stop there. Their output or end product — the fundamental reason for their being on a Board or Commission — is the joint decisions and policies which will affect the entire community. That calls for being a legislator.

The responsibilities of a legislator require objectively balancing the interests of one group against those of other groups with equally legitimate interests, considering present desires, even though agreed to by all, against long-term goals, projecting short-term benefits vs. long-term effects, weighing the costs of doing (or not doing) against the actual results to be derived, being realistic about what can and cannot be done given the economic and political realities. And each decision must be examined for the continuing financial and social consequences thereby incurred by all sections of the community being served.

In short, the Board Member as legislator must expand his or her horizons to consider all groups in the community, all legitimate interests of these groups, and the long-range as well as the short-range impact of each decision on all the others. An awesome responsibility not to be undertaken lightly, but also a tremendously rewarding opportunity to exercise responsible stewardship of what has been passed on to us by the Callahans in each of our lives.

Illinois Parks and Recreation 9 July/August, 1979