Read All Instructions Before Beginning Installation

Here we are in November and this whole month is an Installation extravaganza for Eastern Star Chapters. Each local Chapter has to install its officers for the coming year and the Installations have to happen before November 30, so almost 200 Chapters are having their installations this month. Each year that I have been a Grand Officer, I have gotten some invitations to some of the local Chapters to come visit and participate in the ceremony to Install my own officer, but boy do you get more invites when you are a Grand Line Officer. I think I did about fifteen installations when I was Grand Warder and Grand Marshal and this year it looks like I may hit twenty, sometimes doing two in one day. A long time ago, when I was preparing invitations for my own Chapter Installation, in 1995, I remember being told a rule that you only send invitations to Grand Officers in your local area or perhaps those who live within 75 - 100 miles of your Chapter, but clearly that is an old rule that we have tossed out the window because I have gotten invitations from all over. I love getting them, but I feel bad that I just can't accept them all, mostly because dozens of them seem to be on the same day. This year, that day seems to be November 14. I must have already gotten a dozen invites for that same day. I have been accepting invitations as I get them if I am free on the date of the invite, so I feel a bit first come, first serve. I know that some people say you should favor your local area, but I wonder if that is entirely fair when you are a Grand Line Officer. If I go to just the Installations in my local area each year for the next four years, that means that I will be installing the same people four times into four different offices as we go up the line together. I wonder if it is better in later years to favor Chapters for whom you haven't attended an Installation yet, so you can install more different people once rather than the same people four times? At least I have all year to think about that since I am pretty well promised out for this year already. And since I am installing line officers now, they are mostly different people than the ones I installed the last two years. I have also noticed some interesting differences in the various areas around the state. In some areas, all of the visiting Grand Officers are called on to give some remarks after the official Installation Ceremony is over. In other areas, only one Grand Officer is called on and we are supposed to huddle up to pick who it will be. Some people say to favor the local Grand Officer and some people say to favor the one that came the farthest. Those are sort of incompatible, so perhaps we should just draw straws. It can make for a bit of a long evening when a whole lot of people speak. I was at one Installation where every Past Grand Matron, Past Grand Patron and Grand Officer was called on. It added an hour to the Installation, which already usually take about two hours to do. I cannot imagine that the audience was as riveted by the sixth or seventh speaker as they were by the first one, but everyone has their own traditions and diversity is a good thing. In some areas, no one is called on and only the new leaders speak at an Installation. My area does that, so I don't have to give remarks at most of the Installations I attend. When you go to a dozen in a small area, it can be hard to come up with something inspiring and original for each Installation, because you can't repeat your remarks where there are people that already heard them. I travel with several small items that I can use for remarks, so I am always ready, just in case, because you absolutely never know when someone will call on you to speak and having several lets me pick one that is most appropriate to the theme and/or Chapter. I keep a travel book where I write down where I have been and in it I also note which remarks I gave so I can avoid repeating them. I hope that the new appointive Grand Officers know to travel with draft remarks, just in case. Nobody warned me about that my first year as Grand Warder in 2008, so I got caught out a time or two. I am pretty good extemporanous speaker though, so I was able to wing it, but not everyone can do that. Dress is also interesting at Installations. Almost all the Installations are formal, regardless of the time of day, so the men are in tuxedos and the ladies in formal, floor length dresses. There was a time when it was traditional for all the lady officers who were being installed not only to wear a formal dress, but to wear a white one. They look beautiful in the room during the ceremony, but sometimes they can be hard to clean and it can be hard to explain to others why you got married every year, when they see all the pictures of you in a white dress and your husband in a tuxedo over and over and over again. In recent years, ladies have been wearing dresses of different colors to the Installation. Those can be nice since they can match a theme or the colors of the year, but it is harder to figure out who is actually being installed and sometimes the colors next to one another when the officers are lined up can clash a bit, two problems you don't have with white dresses. It is expected that Grand Officers attending an Installation will install their local officers, so I am expected to install the Associate Conductresses this year. In our ceremony, the two Conductresses are installed together, so I have been asked to do both several times this month because the Grand Conductress and I are not overlapping any Installations so far as I know. It is also expected that the Grand Officer will memorize their Installation work and recite it without reading it, even though there is usually an open book on the podium. It is a fair amount of work to memorize a section word for word perfect and you practice and practice and practice. The best is when someone else drives so you can practice in the car before you get there. One thing I have learned though is "Never Stop - Die Falling Forward". If you miss a word or turn something around, keep going! If you stop it draws attention to the mistake, but if you keep going, half the time no one will be certain if you got it right or wrong anyway as long as all the key points are there. Of course it is better to get it right, but if you don't, better to not make a big deal of it or start over. That is the kiss of Death! Luckily, most members are not that familiar with all of the Installation work, unlike our Opening and Closing ceremonies, so if you make a mistake, there is not usually the gigantic inhalation (you know, that AAAAAHHHHH type inhalation of huge amounts of air that sounds like the members are trying to suck up the carpet off the floor with nothing but lung power) at your transgression. If you mess up something everyone knows, like Opening, there can be lots of carpet suck in the room, but with Installation, you can miss a word and not give anyone a coronary. You may want to sink into the floor with shame that you got it wrong, but at least most of the other people in the room don't know it. Next weekend, I am in Davis for my one Eastern Star event this month that is not actually an Installation. I will let you know all about it next Monday.