Kristina Morrison

Motivational Speech

Hello and good morning to you all. I would like to thank everyone for being here for our monthly progress meeting. Today we have quite a lot to talk about so I will get right down to it.

It was Gandhi who said “I shall pass through this world but once. Any good therefore that I can do or any kindness that I can show to any human being, let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.” Gandhi was referring to volunteers in this speech; people like you. People who make the world go ‘round. People who volunteer their time, talents, and love to make this world a better place (Anaphora- repeating the same word or group of words at the beginning of a series of phrases). A volunteer is a person who performs a service willingly and without pay. However, if you have ever had the pleasure of working with one of our volunteers here at the club, you would see that a volunteer is much more than that. A volunteer is a friend, a helping hand, a smile that brightens your day (Synecdoche- a figure of speech in which in which a part stands for a whole), and a person who is truly one of God’s greatest gifts. I would like us to each remember why it is we started working here. We wanted to make a difference in our work, in our actions. We wanted to be that helping hand that a child needs. To show them that there is ALWAYS some one here for them to depend on and to inspire them to do whatever they want in life. There are no limitations to what a volunteer can do when they set their mind to it. This has, and always will be our motto.

We are facing a disappointing obstacle here at Brigade. It seems we have not been meeting our monthly quotas for volunteers. This is both disheartening and troublesome for me to admit because we have always prided ourselves on the extended efforts of our volunteers. I cannot thank our volunteers here at Brigade Boys and Girls Club enough for their continuing strive to make this organization a better and more effective one. But without more volunteers, we are suffering, hurting even. Without volunteers we do not hurt ourselves, we do not hurt others, we hurt the children, because they are who rely on them (Parallelism- recurrent syntactical similarity in a series of phrases or sentences; several parts of a sentence or several sentences are developed and phrased similarly to show that the ideas in the parts or sentences are equal in importance).

That is why today, I announce that we will begin the “Get on Board” volunteer recruitment project. This project will begin starting next week, and will commence at the end of the month. Our ultimate goal is to sign on 100 more volunteers. But how, may you ask, does this involve each of you? This will be a competition for all of our employees. After this meeting we will split you all into three teams. It will be your job to recruit the most volunteers. We have supplied each group with one hundred dollars from our annual public relations fund to use as you wish for recruitment activities. Get creative. This is your opportunity to show us what you can do.

After the month is over, we will tally the results and announce the winner. The group with the most recruited volunteers will win a pizza party from our ever helpful sponsors, Papa Johns. Not to mention a bonus added to their check. But the true joy should, and will be that Brigade will have more volunteers to serve the needs of the organization and the children.

We should not live to serve, but serve to live (Chiasmus- two corresponding pairs arranged not in parallels [a-b-a-b] but in inverted order [a-b-b-a]). We are all here today because we believe in what we are doing, and that we can make a difference in the lives of these children. As I let you go today I would like you to remember that, and to put your all into finding others that can and want to do the same. I thank you for your continuing support and enthusiasm you bring to the job each and every day. Have a good week everyone.