You Want Me To What?

This past weekend we had one of our Deputy Grand Matron Brush Up Schools where we go over how to perform our ceremonies with the ladies who are supposed to be the "ritual resource" for their area. You have to admire the bravery of each of these ladies. We take good, hard working members who are deserving of recognition, we give them a three day school of instruction in October and then a Brush Up School for one day in January and they get to go back to their home area and be "The Source of All Knowledge" regarding our Ritual work. I know that it was ulcer making when I did it and I don't think that has changed. You go to the Chapters in your District and they have ten thousand questions and you are supposed to have ten thousand answers. I think the one sentence that saved me was, "I think I know the answer, but I want to make sure to give you correct information, so let me look at that and get right back to you." It is a wonderful honor to hold and a very, very important service to our Chapters and our Order. For many people, your year as Deputy is the best ever. I loved mine. It is your first chance to be in a position that is recognized state wide and it is often your first impetus to really travel outside your own area. I know that for normal, outgoing people, you can travel anytime, but, although no one ever believes me, I am really very shy. I was raised not to talk to strangers and that a lady does not approach a stranger and introduce herself, so doing those things is really hard for me, but I force myself to do it and have a good time doing it because I really do want to meet all these new and wonderful people and there just isn't any other way. When I was Deputy though, it gave me an excuse to be able to speak to strangers and a likelihood that they would respond to me, just because of my position. So that made it a lot easier to get to meet people and a lot more comfortable to travel to where no one knew me. That year, which was 2003 for me, I attended ten Official Visits outside of my own area and everyone was so welcoming that it made it really, really easy, even for a shy person like me. I am told that in some areas, it is hard to find someone to serve as a Deputy because of the expense. That puzzled me until I looked at the map and realized that for some of these ladies, the Chapters in their district are a hundred miles apart or more. When I was Deputy, the farthest Chapter from my house was actually my own Chapter and it is only twenty minutes away. Also, I had a delightful conversation with several of the Deputies who explained to me how different the expectations are in different parts of the state, mostly broken down along Association lines. According to our Constitution, a Deputy is only requred to hold a practice for each Chapter in her District and to attend her Deputy's Official Visit to each Chapter, so the minimum requirement is to go twice. However, no one does just that. But how much over that standard they go varies widely. In some areas, what I thought of as typical, but perhaps is not, for each Chapter in her District, the Deputy holds a first meeting practice, then attends the first meeting, holds an initiation practice and attends the meeting with initiation, holds a district wide practice for memorial, attends her Deputy's Official Visit, and comes out for one or two party nights, for a total of about five or six meeting visits for each Chapter. Since most Chapters now meet once a month, that comes to about half the Chapter meetings plus of course all the meetings of her own Chapter. But in some areas, they expect the Deputy to come to every single meeting of every single Chapter in her District. Wow! In a District of five or six Chapters, that's a minimum of half a dozen meetings each and every month. I don't know how these differences got started but I have heard that if you are in one of these "come to everything" areas and you don't come to everything, people are very, very disappointed. And since the last thing any Deputy wants to do is disappoint the members of her District, people in those areas know that if you say yes to being a Deputy, you need to go to everything. I am thinking about collecting the information to figure out which areas are which way to see if geography has anything to do with this split in belief. That might be interesting to figure out. It is sad that some people have to say no when asked because it truly is a wonderful time and it would be nice if every deserving Sister had the opportunity to serve. Next weekend I am in Tracy, Oroville and Los Altos.