And We're Off

This weekend was the first Official Visit of the Worthy Grand Matron and Worthy Grand Patron for 2010. It was a traditional style Official Visit and the theme was Happy New Year. I think that the man who dressed up as the old 2009 got the better end of the deal than the guy who had to put a diaper, bib and baby hat on over his tuxedo with his 2010 sash. So what is an Official Visit? A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, when California had less than 100 Chapters, it was traditional for the WGM to visit each Chapter during her year at a regular Chapter meeting when possible, or at a special meeting called for the purpose of letting the Official Visit happen. Since it was a regular meeting of a Chapter, it was run just like any other meeting. The WGM would come early and inspect the books and records of the Chapter with the Chapter Secretary and Treasurer, then at the time of the meeting, the officers of the Chapter would do their regular opening ceremony, important visitors would be escorted and introduced, some business might or might not be conducted, and the WGM would be invited to address the membership. The Chapter would perform their closing ceremony and then, usually, some form of gift or entertainment, with food of course, would follow. I am told that in many states, the WGM still visits each and every chapter in this fashion. But that is a bit more do-able in a state with less than sixty Chapters than it is in a state with almost 200. So I understand that when the count of Chapters in California got seriously into the three digit numbers, a system was created of grouping the Chapters into districts, with each district having a representative of the WGM, and thus was created the Deputy Grand Matrons in California. Now, each Deputy makes an official visit to each Chapter at a regular Chapter meeting and does all the same inspecting and stuff that the WGM used to do and then writes up a report to the WGM with all the information that the Deputy reviewed. So that "visit every Chapter, inspect books, records, ceremonial work" stuff is now done for each individual Chapter by the Deputy. However, the WGM still has as part of her duties to visit the Chapters officially and "inspect" them. That practice, of "visiting officially" has evolved more into an opportunity for the WGM and the Grand Family to visit with the members in different parts of the state and for the WGM to be able to inspect whatever aspects of the health and well being of the Chapter are most important to her. Some WGMs have emphasized the quality of the Ritual performance while others are more concerned about the general level of fellowship, camraderie and healthy relationships among the members of the Chapter. Whatever the WGM feels is the important aspects to inspect are what she wants to see most often. Since the Chapters are grouped by District, usually the WGM makes an Official Visit to approximately each District. Sometimes one or two districts have been grouped together and had one visit for the two of them together. Once you make the transition from the WGM visiting every Chapter individually to the WGM visiting a group of Chapters together, it doesn't really matter for "official" purposes how many Chapters you put in the group for the visit. Your limitations really become the distance between the various Chapters because you want the maximum number of members to be able to attend, how big a room you can get to seat everyone that comes, and how many people the WGM can actually meet and speak with in the available time, because you don't want so many Chapters that only a very small number of the attendees actually have a chance to meet and speak with their Grand Officers and the WGM. In our Order, there are three possible styles of Official Visit (OV), Traditional, Reception and Social Style. The Deputy(ies) for the OV are in charge of organizing it. The Traditional Style tries to stick as close as you can to the old individual inspection format, with a full opening ceremony, escort and introduction of visitors, remarks, gifts, entertainment and food. It can be a little tricky to do this with a lot of Chapters because the Deputy has to chop up the meeting into bits and give each Chapter a bit to do. The first OV this past weekend was relatively easy for chopping up because there were only three Chapters in the district, so each one got to do a nice chunk of the work. But when you have six or seven Chapters, you can end up with some Chapters having only a very tiny piece to do. From what I have seen, everyone wants to do the Opening ceremony because that is the piece where all of a Chapter's officers get to participate. The other pieces usually have stuff to do for only a few of the officers. A Reception style OV is very similar to a Traditional one, but the Opening part is cut down by about two thirds and you don't set up all the furniture and paraphernalia. Because of the cut down in ceremony and furniture, the official part of a Reception style OV usually runs about half an hour to an hour less in length than a traditional OV. Of course some people have speakers and stuff to fill in that extra time. This style has seemed to be the least used from what I have seen the past two years. The final style is Social Style. Unlike the Traditional and Reception styles, a Social Style is usually held in the dining room rather than in the Chapter room and it is usually in business dress or even casual dress, rather than formal dress for the event. The dress at Social style OVs varies so widely because it can include any form of activity the District wants. A Social Style is often a meal event with a speaker or entertainment. If the Chapters have been working on a specific charitable project, they may have someone from that project come and speak to tell us about the project and the work that the local Chapters have been doing. Sometimes there are speakers on topics of general interest to the membership. Sometimes there are field trips involved, such as the Social Style that was held at a Relay for Life event where the Grand Officers joined the local Chapters in participating in the Relay for Life walk to benefit the American Cancer Society. Sometimes we visit local museums and points of interest. Sometimes there are musical or dance groups that display their skills. And then usually after the speaker or the trip or whatever, we have lunch or dinner with the members. While I enjoy all the OVs that I have attended because I get a chance to meet and speak with our members all over the state (the truly important part to me of traveling with the Grand Family), I admit a preference for the Social style OVs because I love to learn about the local areas and hear about the wonderful charities that our local Chapters are helping and see the incredible talent of local artists and performers. I have learned bunches about so many topics of interest at the Social OVs, everything from recognizing the signs of a heart attack so you know when to seek medical attention, to emergency preparedness in your own home, to the Japanese internment camps that were set up in Eastern California (that there was such a place as Eastern California), to the fact that tons of movies were filmed and still are filmed in Independence, CA, and tons and tons more. I love to learn about new and different things and I love to attend cultural and artistic events, so Social Style is the most fun to me. This next week, the next OV is on Thursday and I won't be able to make that one, but I will be going to the rest of the weekend's events, including Norwalk, San Diego, Bellflower and Riverside.