Paper, Paper Everywhere

Having some time at home this weekend has given me a chance to start getting organized. I admit that I am probably a bit more paper intensive and get ahead of the curve than many people. Sometimes this is a good thing and sometimes it is probably not so good. But it seems like the pile of information that comes in to a Grand Line officer that has to be processed back out into something recognizable can be a bit daunting. Enter the Binder! (Well, actually four binders at the moment.) I have them labeled Issues, for keeping track of issues that have come up and which may last a while, generating much paper, Session, for stuff on the 2013 Grand Chapter session, Calendar and Budget, for calendar items and things I learn about the Grand Chapter budget process as I go through these learning years, and one labeled Committees, which I really should re-label Appointments, for keeping track of appointments I am supposed to make in the years to come. Some of this stuff may seem early, like the Appointments, and mostly I made up the binder because I was making binders. I don't really need that one until next year, but I do have some paper for it so I thought, what the heck, let's get organized. While most of my appointments will be asked after and accepted only after I am Associate Grand Matron, there are a few appointments that are supposed to be chosen next year, when I am Grand Conductress. Those are for the committees where there is a Chair and a Co-Chair. I am supposed to pick who I want for a Chair in my year and then ask my predecessor to appoint that person as Co-Chair for her year so that my pick gets a year's experience in the duties of the committee and job before they have to be in charge. But again, I don't ask anyone to do anything until after being installed in the appropriate office. I also needed the Appointments binder because I am starting to get member resumes. These are a form that members can fill out to let the Grand Line Officers know what their skills are and if they are interested in serving on a committee. I wanted a place to put those and voila, le binder is ready. I have the feeling that there are a lot of differing opinions on the member resume thing. On the one hand, we do not encourage our members to put themselves forward, so some people feel that if a person asks to be a Deputy or Grand Representative, they should not get picked. On the other hand, especially with committee appointments, I don't know how you find out who wants to serve or who can serve without getting a member resume because some committees need specific skills and you need to know what skills our members have to appoint them, like finding legally trained people for Jurisprudence or those who can sew and do needle arts for Courtesies to Dignitaries. Perhaps we need to work on balancing these conflicting views, maybe with a resume that asks for the member to list their skills and experience that they feel would be helpful to the Grand Chapter without asking them to specifically recommend themselves for a particular position. Maybe that is something that deserves some thought and attention. I thought the Calendar binder was early too, but then I found out that Chapters with anniversaries sometimes want to start getting dates two or three years early so they can look for halls and such, so there is already some stuff to go in there. Issues was actually the first binder I made and that one wasn't early at all because, of course, there seems to always be at least one issue sitting around somewhere. In my experience, four people can't decide what to have for dinner quickly or easily, so it should be expected that in an order of 30,000, someone is having an issue somewhere. But hopefully those can be resolved quickly and with mutual satisfaction to the parties, so I hope to have a fast turnover in that binder. I am learning all about our Grand Chapter Session this year and am attending some meetings for that because I have never been involved with that before and I hope that going to a year's worth of meetings will give me the overview to understand my part in choosing Chairmen for my session activities and fine tuning what we will do when it is my turn to decide. Since I have never served on any Grand Chapter Week Committees, the groups that make everything at the session happen, going to the meetings and exchanging long e-mails with my awesome session chairs has been a great learning process. I don't say anything at the meetings, because I am just there to learn, but I am very happy that I put these on my calendar because I am finding out so much I never knew before. All my notes and the hand outs I have gotten are in that binder. Of course, I also have one more binder, bigger than all the others, which is my binder for my girls, the 2013 Worthy Matrons. That binder has dividers labeled by District and a sheet of all the ladies who have been elected to serve as Associate Conductress in that district. As I hand out my packets at the Instructionals and Transitionals, I have been handing out an information sheet and asking each of the ladies to send it back to me. I have already gotten some and they are tucked into that binder. That one will keep growing, and changing a bit, each year, but it is really the most important one of all because it is how I learn about the people who will serve with me and start gathering information on what they would like to see in the future, so I hope I get all the questionnaires back. I have also started an e-mail list, to which I add each person as I get their information sheet back. I hope that most of my girls will have e-mail because it is a great way to communicate with a large group of people over a very large distance. Next week I am still at home before we set out for four full weekends of lots of events and travel.

I Gotta Get Me a Man

With a couple of weeks off the road, I have some time to think about what I need to get done this year and plan out some goals and tasks. (I also got to clean out my closet yesterday - Hurrah! - That's a hundred or so wire hangers doomed to the recyle bin!) One of the most burning tasks for any Associate Grand Conductress is to start making a list of eligible men from the other side of the state that one might consider asking to join in the journey to the East. You are not allowed to ask anyone to actually serve with you until you have been installed as Grand Conductress, but you need to start making a list of possible men so that you can try to meet them and talk with them when you travel to the other part of the state. Because the Grand Line Officers alternate North and South of the state, and the men alternate also, the person in line ahead of you is not looking at your potential pool of people, so there is no actual conflict, but you still don't ask early because that would not be fair to the person ahead of you because they should have their own time that is not intruded upon and you hope for the same courtesy in return from those that follow you. Since everyone knows that I have to find a man, an amazing number of people pay intense attention to who you talk to and who you meet with during your travels in the Grand Conductress and Associate Grand Conductress years. Very much like an arranged marriage, a bunch of different factors go into picking a man, and if he's married, his wife also, who will be a good fit and who you will still like, admire and appreciate after two and a half years of intense work together. Like a marriage, this pick is for LIFE, since even after you are done with your years of service, you have to get together at reunions, receptions for people you picked to serve with you and to be the advisors and helpers for your Grand Marshal as she goes through the Grand Line. try to meet and talk with possible people as you travel in the far part of the state. From what I have seen, nothing can substantially help or hurt your year more than the choice of your partner. So usually, when I have a decision that includes a bunch of different factors, I try to figure out what is important to consider and ask around about what things should go on my factor list. Here's what I have gleaned so far, in no particular order. The Wife - I have been told, that you aren't just "marrying" a man, you are marrying his spouse too. You are about to be a foursome and the other halves of the couple, my escort and his wife, need to get along too because as we are constantly thrown together, they will also be constantly thrown together. Also, you want someone who is going to be supportive and understanding of the amount of time you are going take away from their life together, and someone who is okay with spending the money that it costs to do all this too. In a perfect world, you want him to have a wife who can take on tasks and projects and be another pair of hands. The Money and the Time - While four years (okay, six) are more expensive than two (okay, two and a half), there are still a lot of expenses associated with serving and you want someone who can hold up their half of the costs without endangering their economics and who has the time to travel as much as the WGM and WGP need to. I sort of feel like I should find who I want and let them decide if they can afford the time and money, but it might be unkind to ask someone who you know can't afford to do it, and if you know that time and money will be okay, that is one huge headache off the list. Opposing Strengths and Weaknesses - From what I have seen, the best couples serving together cover each other's strengths and weaknesses well. So I think I want to find someone who is strong in areas where I am weak and whose weaknesses, if any, fall in areas where I am strong. That way, between the two of us, we should be able to handle anything. Of course, that requires getting to know them well enough to know what their strengths and weaknesses are, which can be its own challenge when everyone is watching who you speak with and no one is supposed to know who you pick until they are revealed in July of your Grand Conductress year. You also can't ask too many people about the men you are looking at because that can also start rumors and everyone seems eager to find out who you are going to choose. Travel Stamina and Health - Because of the amount of travel and the stress involved in the job, I am told that you want someone who is going to be able to keep up on the travel schedule and who you hope will stay healthy through your term of service and beyond. Again, this is a tough area to investigate when you have to watch how many long conversations you have with whom at Eastern Star events. Popular in their Area/Deserving in the State - I am told that you want people to be happy for your choice and excited about your man, so it helps if you choose someone who is well known and well liked, especially in their own local area and throughout the state if possible. It is also important, it seems to me, that they some experience or past service that makes them a person that the members in the state feel is deserving of the high honor of serving as Worthy Grand Patron. To pick someone who has never done much for the order would seem to add difficulty on two levels. First, it seems that a lot of people will think that there are more qualified people you could have chosen and they will be disappointed that you are not rewarding someone who has truly contributed to Grand Chapter. Second, if the person you pick has never served in Grand Chapter in any capacity, whether as a Grand Officer, a Grand Escort, a Grand Representative, on major committees for several years, or something like that, you cannot really see how they will perform in the fish bowl that is a Grand Office nor will they have a very complete understanding of what will be expected of them and what they are getting themselves into. The more they know what is coming, the less difficulty there will be when the rubber meets the road, or at least so I am told. What You Want Them to Do - Each Grand Line Lady, it seems to me, has her own idea of the role that she wants her man to play and she needs to pick someone for whom the role she requests is natural. A friend suggested to me that your man should be able to serve the way you want while still being himself and if he can't do that, he's the wrong man. So I guess I need to firm up my picture of what I expect so I can convey it correctly and find the person who will be able to fill that role while being true to himself. I am sure that there are other things I am supposed to consider, and hopefully I will find them out while I put this list together of people to look at in my travels. The toughest part I think is that I can't be seen talking to anyone too much and I can't call my potential choices for discreet discussions by phone until next November, after Grand Installation, so all the research has to be in stealth mode for this next year so as not to offend anyone. I was told that checking the back of the car for bumper stickers and emblems can be very useful in one's research, so I will have to remember to do that too. Next weekend we are off again so that everyone can be with their family for Christmas. My friends want me to come visit and I have to come up with a good way of explaining that all a Grand Officer wants for Christmas is to stay home and sleep!

Watermelon, Watermelon, Watermelon

Last weekend was the Christmas Party at our Eastern Star Senior Living Community, commonly called the Home. I understand that decades ago it was okay to be a retirement home, but that in the past twenty years or so the words "retirement home" have taken on a bad connotation, painting a picture of a sad, depressing place that people just go to die. So we, and a lot of other groups from what I have seen, have renamed their retirement homes to call them "senior living communities" which implies a more active, dynamic environment where people go to live rather than just fade away. The Home is a perfectly lovely building with awesome stained glass windows, a cozy chapel, an ice cream parlor, and a bazillion other amenities and services for our Residents. The Grand Officers visit the Home at least three times each year, once for the Christmas Party in December, once to make an Official Visit, usually held in February or March, and for the Fiesta, which is like a carnival/festival, in June. Then the Residents come to Grand Chapter for a day in October, so it comes out to about once a quarter. In between our visits, I am told that other Chapters come to visit and hold an Eastern Star meeting at the home for the Residents so that they can participate in our familiar ceremonies. For the Christmas Party, there is usually a lovely dinner and entertainment provided by the Grand Officers. It is traditional for the previous year's Grand Officers to also be invited and starting a couple of years ago, last year's Grand Officers also get to help with the entertainment, so I got to see a bunch of my 2009 Grand Family which was great because I have missed them lots. It is hard to travel with a group of people almost every weekend for a year and then suddenly they aren't there anymore. This year, it was decided that we would do the entertainment and presents and such first and then have the dinner afterwards. I sort of liked that a little better than the other way around because I think that people get really tired after dinner and having an hour or so of stuff after the dinner is harder than doing the program first and then having the dinner afterwards. At least it was easier on those of us who perhaps hadn't gotten as much sleep as they should have the night before. It is also traditional for the husband of the Worthy Grand Matron, or a substitute if said husband is not available, to play Santa and bring presents for all the members of the Home. I understand that the Home provides the official presents, but that the Worthy Grand Matron also buys presents for the Residents, so that is something for which I have to keep an eye out. Each of the Grand Officers take turns delivering the presents from Santa to the Residents and it is considered nice if you can chat with them for a minute or two, but the way the chairs were set up Saturday didn't really make that very easy, so I was only able to speak with my deliverees for a moment. One of the ladies to whom I delivered a present is over 100 years old. That's a lot of Christmases! After delivering the presents to the Residents, we sang Christmas carols with them. That is rather difficult for me since I know the words to exactly zero Christmas carols, but at least for Jingle Bells, which was sung by the 2009s and the 2010s together, words had been provided, and I think I got almost half the words right on Here Comes Santa Claus, at least I think so. For the others, we were told that if you just mouth "watermelon, watermelon, watermelon" over and over, it will look like you are singing. I think that there was a lot of watermelon flying around that room Saturday night. It's a good thing that the Residents knew almost all the words to almost all the songs because otherwise the singing would have been very soft. There was also a lovely duet of White Christmas by the gentleman playing Santa and his wife, who are marvelous singers. After dinner, the Grand Family went to our hotel for Secret Pal presents. Secret Pals is something that many Grand Families do, where each Grand Officer gets another Grand Officer to be their Secret Pal. Then you bring them presents and cards and fun things all year long and get them to the secret keeper without anyone seeing them so that your Secret Pal doesn't find out who you are until the end of the year. We all got together in the breakfast room at the hotel and the presents were handed out one at a time so that everyone could see the gifts. I got a great cookie cutter in the shape of a dragon that I am sure the Chairmen of my next events are going to come to loathe because the cookies will be way too cute not to make them for everyone, but rolling the dough out over and over is going to make them a bit crazy. But I can't wait to see how the cookies come out because the cutter has all sorts of great detail in the outline. I also got a dragon calendar and a dragon puzzle. So only three dragons this week. Perhaps the pace is slowing down and I won't end up with 1000 after all, perhaps just several hundred. After you get your Secret Pal present, you sort of have to thank the room in general because of course you don't know who your Secret Pal may be. I have a great Secret Pal who has sent me some way cool cards too. A lot of the presents were in danger of being swiped if the new owner didn't pay attention because they were so nice. Everyone had a lot of fun even though a couple of people had to be reminded not to spray their awesome new body spray at the crowd over the apple pie. I mean we understand that you want everyone to see how great it smells and some of them were very nice, but not over the pie please. Apple pie should not taste pine fresh. The next day, we had a transitional and an instructional in Lomita with much laughter and many funny hats. Perhaps I will explain about transitionals next week, when we are home for the holidays. In fact we have three travel weekends off, just in time for me to try to get my house into some kind of controlled chaos instead of the rampant chaos currently taking over every flat surface.

980 Miles

This was quite the driving weekend. While I know a lot of people in Eastern Star who would be unimpressed with this many miles in three days, to put it in my perspective, I usually drive my car about 6,000 miles a year, so I just did two months of driving in three days. I fear it may be a week before my ankle recovers and I think that my back and shoulders are going to be stiff for days (although that could also be because of the guy who rearranged my car last Thursday night.) Last Friday, I left San Jose (in a gutless wonder rental car that sounded like I was whipping the hamster to run on his wheel faster every time I pushed on the accelerator) around 1:30 pm to drive to Chico for our first Instructional of the year. I got there in time to have a bite to eat at the Togo's and change clothes in the bathroom before going over to the hall. Changing clothes in a fast food bathroom, or in your car even, is a necessary Grand Officer skill, I'm afraid. When I am driving a long distance, I usually wear sweat pants and a polo shirt and tennis shoes with good socks because I am not able to sit for long periods of time well and loose cotton clothing makes it a little easier. If I was going to check into my hotel, I would have done that and changed into my travel suit (sleeveless dress and jacket on Friday, jacket and skirt with white blouse on Saturday, pantyhose and dress shoes) in my hotel room and then driven over to the hall. But I was not staying in Chico that night and had nowhere else to change. Luckily I was not changing into my formal and petticoat, since that can be really challenging in a bathroom stall. Sometimes, if you are early enough, you can change at the hall, but when you are walking in just on time, you don't want to end up late because you aren't dressed for the event. So I got changed at the Togo's and popped over to the hall. The rest of the Grand Family had not arrived yet, but there were some members with whom I could chat. I also hauled in a box of those packets that I had put together for my girls, not knowing who might come, so I had the entire far north in the box ready to go. I have to figure out how to get the whole south down to Yorba Linda next weekend, maybe in an extra suitcase, preferably with wheels! I am ever so grateful right now for the ADA because ramps and elevators make getting little carts of boxes in and out of the halls a lot easier. An Instructional is an opportunity for the Grand Officers to show the local officers how various bits of our ceremonial work are supposed to be performed. The basics of our ceremonies are not difficult, but the devil is in the details, things like which hand you use to pick something up or hold something, which way you turn when you are walking around. Our members are very eager to do their work correctly and well and we are all very eager to help them with that, but boy are there a lot of things you can do wrong. It really takes some careful study to get all the bits done right. I am also told that some members like to see the Grand Officers do their work because it reassures them that the people who were chosen to be Grand Officers are deserving of the honor. I am not sure if that is a common view or not, but it does seem true that your ability to perform the ceremonials of our Order is a first impression deciding factor when people see the new Grand Family and getting to know us as people and valuing us that way on a more personal level sometimes seems to come a little later so it sure does help with making a good first impression on the members if you can do your Ritual work well. So, in addition to providing a learning opportunity, instructionals are a nice opportunity for the local officers to get to really know their Grand Officers. That is particularly important for me at the bottom of the Grand Line because this is where I start meeting the ladies that have done me the honor of agreeing to serve with me for four years, culminating of course in our very special year of 2013. We had four Instructionals this past weekend, in Chico, Sacramento, Merced and Tulare, and with the drive to and from San Jose at the beginning and at the end, guess how many miles that ended up being? Usually the Grand Line Officer chooses a name for the ladies serving with her and I have chosen to call my "girls" the Dragon Riders of 2013. I think that it is fun and exciting to ride a dragon, but you have to be very, very brave and that is what I am hoping for my girls. We had some time this weekend to discuss the issue of "carpet suck," an issue that I believe every organization sees to a greater or lesser extent. Generally speaking, carpet sucking is when you propose a new idea or project for a group, any group to which you belong - something that has never been done before - and a bunch of people gasp and inhale so loudly and so sharply that you think they are trying to suck the carpet off the floor by sheer force of lung power. You worry that they will hyperventilate. Well, every now and then, on occasion, I have seen a bit of this carpet sucking reaction to a new idea and when you are new and enthusiastic and you pop out a new idea and you get a big dose of carpet suck, it can be very discouraging. But I try to tell people that if you never try, you can never succeed. So you have to "screw your courage to the sticking point" and give your idea a chance. Hopefully if everyone gives it a fair chance, you'll know if it is wonderful and you should do it every year or if it was absolutely awful and never to be repeated. But you can't really figure that out unless everyone gives it a good effort because a half hearted attempt does not really test the idea. But it takes a lot of bravery sometimes to run with an idea after a big dose of carpet suck. I try to remind myself that I have to be brave too because I can't ask something of someone else that I am not willing to do. One of my "big accomplishments" for the weekend was that I managed to eat all the amazing meals fixed for the Grand Family by the wonderful members of the local chapters and not gain any weight this weekend. That may not sound like much, but when you are presented with cheesecake with cherry sauce and cookies and taco salad and chicken casserole and chicken salad croissants and brownies, etc., to eat and all of it yummy, breaking even is all you can hope for. When I was Grand Warder, I gained ten pounds in that one year and it took me all this time, a whole 'nother year, just to get back to the weight I was at when I started as a Grand Officer. It is horribly difficult when we have so many members in our order who cook and bake divinely! You want to have lots of everything! My favorite baker in Merced, for example, makes the most delectable cookies you have ever had melt in your mouth. But I cannot afford to gain another ten pounds each year for the next four and I am not supposed to eat the sweets and the sugar anyway for my health, so I fear that I will be missing out a lot in my travels. Next weekend I am flying down to Yorba Linda for the Christmas Party at our Eastern Star Senior Living Community and that should be a lot of fun.