A Life Sentence

Sometimes, when I start thinking about this journey I am on as a six year voyage, something comes along to remind me what one of the Past Grand Matrons told me. She said that serving in the Grand Line is not a voyage at all, but a life sentence without possibility of parole. I was reminded of that this weekend as I attended a reunion dinner for the 2006s. Traditionally, for ten years after the end of the year, Grand Families, along with the Deputies and Worthy Matrons and Patrons and Grand Representatives who served together have reunions, which are hosted by different associations throughout the state who volunteer to have everyone come to their area to get together, go on fun activities together and reminisce about how much better it was in their year. The first four years can be especially busy because of the residual obligations towards the lady who served as Grand Marshal for that particular family, but even after that, you want to see the people. After all, when you've spent an entire year traveling with a group of people, you miss them. It's hard to make the transition back to normal life, where someone doesn't send you an e-mail every Tuesday telling you what to wear and when you need to be in what location. Life can seem so . . . . directionless. So reunions are usually a weekend thing and having it in your area is both wonderful and a bit of a nightmare. It's wonderful because you get to see a bunch of people that you've loved and missed and they are in your area so going is easy, but it is a bit of a nightmare because you have to make all the arrangements and keep everyone entertained. Have you ever tried to come up with enough different things to do so that fifty or sixty adults all have something to do for two days that they all like? And they are all your Family, so you really have to do a good job, right down to making table favors and everything! I have missed most of my reunions so far because I have been on the road without a break, which is not the normal way, although I am not the first person who has had this problem. I missed the 2008 reunion entirely in 2009 and this year only got to the dinner because it was in my area. I missed the 2009 reunion this year too. By the time I am free of other travel obligations, the 2008 reunions will be half done. But missing my own reunions is not why I crashed the party on the 2006s. To be honest, I didn't serve in 2006. So I was a bit surprised when I got an invitation to the reunion and I called the Chairman to find out if perhaps I got the invite by accident. But nossiree bob, she told me that all the 2010s were invited, and I know a fair number of the 2006s, so I thought, what the heck, at least the dinner is in the hotel, why not? The coolest part is that I knew just about everyone in the room, so I got to sit with friends and talk with friends and visit with friends and I thought, wow, so this is what a reunion is like. And everyone said that they were happy that I joined them and really made me feel welcome. It was awesome and I am very happy that I bought that dinner ticket. The food was okay, about what one expects for a banquet meal. The only creepy part was the cream. I think we had a bad one at our table, because it did bizarre and scary things in the coffee, but we were able to get new cups and cream and coffee before anything was able to crawl out of any of the cups and get us. The entertainment was a lady singer with a keyboard player accompanying her and she did a good job of being amusing between the songs. She had some nice accessories to go with some of the songs, played a little guitar with the country ones and had a tambourine for some of the others. But it was during the entertainment that I really saw the effect of a life sentence. You see, it is hard on the ladies because we are expected to do so much and deal with so much through four years going up the line, where the men only have two and are not expected to do as much, and then we have four years of being the advisor for our Grand Marshal on her journey up and coordinating her Installation and her pre-Revealing of her man and a bunch of other stuff and the man is expected to help, but doesn't carry the heavy water, so you'd think we have the short end of the stick. No Way! Because it is the man who gets to have the really great sense of humor when they want to embarrass someone. Last year, at one event, the Grand Line men had to put on grass skirts with strings of fruit and coconut bras. The whole crowd was dying as the lead dancer taught the men to do Polynesian dancing by counting off, hit the orange, hit the banana, and so on. Well at the reunion, the lucky 2006 Worthy Grand Patron got to wear the pink feather boa during the serenade, among other things. Sometimes the ladies get stuck on some of this, (in 2008, they both had to wear a dog on their head at one Official Visit), but more often, the members are kinder to the lady, since after all, we are frail, fragile flowers of femininity, don't you know, but with the men they are merciless, since the men are tough and rugged and strong and can take it. For some reason, I am totally at peace with this division of labor among the sexes and I think that it is one tradition that I am going to hang on to. But it does mean that a really good sense of humor and an ability to laugh at oneself, not just for two years, but for the rest of your life, are very important traits for my man to be. Just what I needed, more requirements on the list. I just hope that my paragon is out there waiting for my call. Next weekend, we are off because of Memorial Day.

Leadership In the 21st Century

This past weekend I attended a leadership seminar that is put on by the Grand Lodge of California for those men who are going to be installed as the Master of their Lodge at the end of this year. I understand that there is another seminar that they attended last year as well, but I haven't had a chance to see that one yet. Before I talk about the program, I need to say how incredibly helpful, open, encouraging and positive all of the retreat staff were to me. They really made me feel that they appreciated my taking the time to come and see what they were doing. I am enormously grateful for their kind welcome and enthusiastic support as I attended an event where I could have spent the entire time feeling like an interloper and instead felt like someone that they were truly happy to see and honored to have there. They were all awesome! So the seminar goes from Friday evening to Monday noon and there is one track for the men and another track for their ladies if the ladies come with them. Some of the presentations are done in a joint session, if the information is for both the men and the ladies. The price, at over $400 might seem daunting at first, but knowing that it includes two hotel nights, two breakfasts, a lunch and a formal dinner dance, it is actually very reasonable. With the hotel and meals backed out, the actual training part, including a binder full of course materials, only comes to around $100 or less. I was told though, that actually putting it on costs more than that, but the Grand Lodge subsidizes the process. However, I don't know if that is because they have a fair number of paid staff there and perhaps it can be done for less if you can get a few more of the work hours done by volunteers, at least at first, until people see the value so that you can raise money to help make it happen. I came away with a lot of notes and ideas that I hope to use at my Associate Conductress workshop later this year, but one big thing hit me up front which was that we need to consider and talk about having more training earlier. This seminar was in May for people who will be installed in December and January, so about seven months ahead. It included information on selecting officers, planning your Installation, doing a budget for your year and a whole lot more. Getting the information seven months ahead gives these men the chance to apply that information as they get ready for their year. Traditionally, we hold our main workshop for our soon to be installed leaders at the end of July and the installations are in November. I am told that this timing was originally set up because the Associate Matron/Associate Patron workshop was not really for leadership and management training as much as for a social opportunity to get to know the people all over the state that would be serving together and acquainting them with the Associate Grand Matron and Associate Grand Patron's plans for the coming year, a chance to practice the soon to be new Opening and Closing Odes that we sing that change every year, and a chance to find out what the AGM's special projects will be. It was done later so that it would not step on the current leader's year too much and that makes sense for those sorts of items if that is all you are using the workshop for. However, if we are going to make a fundamental shift and use the workshops not so much for telling people from all over the state what their leaders are doing, but use it more to help give our members tools to make them better leaders in their own Chapters, they need the information earlier, perhaps even in the spring, March, April or May, before they start choosing officers in June and doing budgets in July and August. I don't know what the right answer might be to this dilemma. Do we have two separate things? That takes time and money that can be hard for our members. Do we move the current workshop up and do the training stuff and less of the "what next year will look like" stuff? Do we keep doing general training for all of our membership and not specifically leadership training for our upcoming leaders and keep the general training earlier in the year and leave the workshop dates alone? I hope that in the near future, these issues are discussed so that some solid consensus can be reached as to how we help our members and our Chapters with these important issues so that our local leaders can do their best job and make our Chapters even stronger in the future. Seeing the stuff that was presented also made me happy that I decided to do a workshop this year and start getting information and training to my girls. There was so much stuff presented at this weekend, and knowing that it is one of two weekends that these men get, makes me want my girls to have the same, or at least as much as possible, opportunity to gain confidence and comfort with their new roles as leaders as they move forward so that by the time they sit in the chair, they may be nervous, but they won't be fearful. Next weekend, I will be in Richmond and Vacaville. I will not be able to be in Castro Valley because of a work commitment.

The Road to Eureka - Part Two

So Friday morning we got up nice and early, but not too early, to leave our hotel in Ukiah at 9:30 am for our drive to Eureka. Now the roads between Ukiah and Eureka have some of the best scenery in California. Some might say the best, but I prefer Yosemite by a tad and the snow covered mountains in Eastern California by a smidge. Your mileage may vary. What was particularly unusual about that morning is that we were in no big hurry. Usually, we are racing from place to place. It is especially hard when we have an afternoon thing and an evening thing that are hours of travel apart because we sometimes have to break off conversations with members to load up into the cars and take off for the next place. I hate doing that, but it is a necessary evil with no way around it. What can't be cured must be endured. But on this particular Friday, we had a lovely seven or eight hours to drive about three, so there was plenty of time for enjoying the sights in this part of the state that is not visited nearly as much as it should be, if for no other reason than its natural beauty. So off we go up 101, that part of it that stops being a highway every now and then to pass through a town. You know, it's the part where you really have to watch the speed limit signs because tourists passing through too fast are a healthy part of the local economy. A little under an hour down the road, we come to a rest stop and decide to get out and take a stretch. There is a nice creek which I imagine is a bit more of a rushing river earlier in the year and plenty of parking. What more can you ask of a road trip? Unfortunately, this is also where we had a bit more excitement than we were hoping for because as we were pulling out to get back into a caravan line, we heard one of those sounds that you hate more than any other on the road, the squeeek-crunch of stuff that is not supposed to touch touching rather painfully. A fender bender in a parking lot is annoying at the best of times and up on 101 amid the trees where towns are far apart is not the best of times. In all honesty, I am astonished that Grand Families don't have fender benders more often, because you've got all these cars who are all parked next to one another and they are all trying to leave at the same time to get in line. But up until this point, so far as I know, we've never had one in a caravan. Luckily, no one was hurt and the damage was not disabling to the vehicle in question, so we were all able to get on the road with little delay and only a few shaken but not stirred people. A few more miles up the road, we stopped at a redwood place with a lovely souvenier place where the Grandfather tree sits. This tree is ginormous!!! I am not sure if it started out as three redwoods that grew all together or one big tree, I suspect the former, but it would take more than a dozen people to clasp hand around the thing. We took pictures under the tree and I was completely bummed that my camera broke at the end of last year and I couldn't get one. What an amazing sight! Not knowing what the food plan was, and it being almost noon when we got to this shop, I got a smoothie to tide me over, but not fill me too much if we were going to stop somewhere for a late lunch. I confess that one of the hardest things about road trips for me is not knowing when or where you are going to eat. I have to watch my blood sugar fairly carefully and snacks totally kill me, so eating meals at regular times is fairly essential for me, but often impossible when we are on the road. It is really tough though, when you don't know if you should eat a lot or a little or nothing at a particular stop because you don't know what comes next. I bought a couple of souveniers for friends and eventually, we were back on the road. We did end up stopping for lunch at a place called Eel River, which was a nice pub sort of spot which was clearly the favorite of the locals. My daddy always told me that to find the best food, you want to go where the locals go and not where the tourists go and we seem to have managed that with our lunch stop. The food was good and the company congenial. We might have been a touch loud for them, but maybe not. It was hard to tell. Back on the road, we had one more stop before reaching our hotel, the Loleta Cheese Factory. This is a quaint little building in Loleta, just shy of Eureka, where they make their cheese on site and you can see the operation through windows from their gift shop. We got there just as they had finished the day's run, of cheddar I think they said, and were cleaning up. The shop had all sorts of selections of fresh and aged cheeses, wine, crackers, and cute gift items. If you like cheese, you have to stop there on your road to Eureka! But please, no cutting the cheese jokes. :-) So we made it up to Eureka and checked into our hotel in time to change clothes and head over for the Official Visit that night. Lucky for me, there was an Associate Conductress for that district, so I didn't have to work for my snacks again, but one of the other officers did end up taking a chair. The hall there is beautiful with a lovely meeting room. The only thing that made it tricky is that the room is a very long rectangle, so there is a LOT of room to cover in the East leading up to the podium and in the West towards the back of the room. In some of our ceremony work, all the officers are supposed to arrive at their stations around the perimeter of the room at the same time and it was quite tricky for the people who only had to go two or three feet to go slowly enough for those who had fifteen feet to cover to make it in time. This was something that we had to go early and practice because the next morning we were doing an Instructional for these members and we had to show them how to time the work correctly so we had to make sure we could do it correctly. It worked, but it really showed how different rooms take different timing. After our Saturday morning instructional, we had lunch and then a short afternoon Leadership session. It was really nice that the members got to see some of the Leadership committees modules, but it was a shame that they couldn't see them all. It is a puzzlement how to get all our programs everywhere in the State for all the members no matter how far away they are. I wonder if anyone has ever looked into video conferencing or a remote site set up so we could travel less and offer more? On Sunday, we had a Grand Officer breakfast and reception. We had abelskievers with syrup and jam, which are totally yummy and totally naughty and then we got to explore Ferndale, which I am told is the best preserved Victorian town in California. The shopping is great and the people are very friendly. The reception was also very well done and we had a great time before turning to make the long drive home. Next week I am going to miss the visits in Barstow and Palmdale so I can attend the Grand Lodge Retreat event in San Ramon and see what our Brother Masons are teaching their up and coming leaders, to see if the same sort of stuff might help our members and get a feel for ways that we can provide more training opportunities to our upcoming leaders.

The Road to Eureka

What an amazing five day road trip I have had this past week! On Wednesday, I left work early to travel to an Official Visit in Santa Rosa. Some friends of mine had just been initiated up there so I was able to see and visit with them and enjoy the OV to the district that includes their Chapter and then stay overnight with them. I then left my car at their house and took off north with my escort for a four day jaunt. On Thursday, we only had to travel about an hour, from Santa Rosa to Ukiah, so we stopped the lovely town of Healdsburg, about halfway between, to shop, visit antique stores and have a wonderful lunch. The town square has shops all around it and on most of the streets leading away from the square. I was able to get a manicure (thank goodness!) and visited the little museum dedicated to the hand fan, which has some exquisite examples of folding and fixed fans and lovely historical tidbits about the use and construction of hand fans. It is just a little room, but the displays and information were great. There were several nice jewelry stores and all sorts of interesting things in the antique shops. We had a nice lunch, with cloth napkins, at a small restaurant called Ravenous. The food was very good and I thoroughly enjoyed the caprese salad, but the service was rather slow for us, so it is a good thing that we had plenty of time when we stopped there. When I am out of the office on a work day, I usually have to check my e-mails and voice mails several times during the day and get back to people so that I don't get too far behind. Also, people expect answers from me within the next business day unless I have given them lots of notice that I am gone on vacation, which this wasn't really, so before we left for Healdsburg and in the car at various points, and in the new hotel in Ukiah after we checked in, I had to listen to and read messages and return them. It's harder to be working outside the office, but I am glad and grateful that I can do that so I can go on trips like this one sometimes. Thursday night in Ukiah, the district did not have any installed Associate Conductresses to do the various ceremonial duties, so the Deputy Grand Matron asked me to do the work with the local officers. I went ahead to the OV early to help and to study the room so I could do a good job. I find it more interesting to do than to watch, so doing the work probably made this one of the most enjoyable of the OVs so far this year for me. The only catch is that when a local member makes a mistake, everyone is very patient and understanding because any of us can make a mistake and if you have a member that has tried hard to learn their lines and their blocking, which we call floor work, then that is all we ask or expect and we try to smile encouragment at them and we all understand if they make a mistake. But the Grand Officers are expected to know their work, both their lines and their floor work perfectly, and because there is an expectation, there is disappointment if you fail to meet the expectation. So there is a lot of pressure on a Grand Officer if they are filling a station at an OV. Luckily, I've had lots of practice at everything I had to do that night, between the various Instructionals, Schools and Transitionals we've done this year, so I think I got everything right. At least no one has said anything to me so far. On Friday morning, we left Ukiah for Eureka and that is another adventure that I will write about next week, since I will be home next weekend for Mother's Day.