A Little Lead Shot in the End of Your Baton

A week ago, I attended the reception for my hopefully soon to be little sister, the current Grand Marshal. There is a current tradition in California Eastern Star, which may or may not change any time soon, based on some current discussions and legislation, but still in effect for now, that the Grand Marshal chosen by the Worthy Grand Matron is the election designee for the office of Associate Grand Conductress. That's how I got where I am now and how almost every, but not quite all, other Grand Line officers got into it also. But lots of things made that job, and this just past reception interesting for me. To understand how this works, you need to understand a little something about the job which the WGM expects the Grand Marshal to perform. The details vary from year to year and WGM to WGM, so your mileage may vary, but the usual essentials are to take charge of coordinating the activities of the Grand Family, particularly the Appointive Grand Officers. This includes putting together a monthly schedule of activities, finding out what is going on at the activities from the chairmen of them, getting hotel room blocks set up so the traveling Grand Officers have somewhere to stay, finding out what the chairmen would like the Grand Officers to wear to the event and then checking and coordinating that with what the WGM would like them to wear to the event, making reservations and arrangements for meals between events as needed, working out details on dress orders and Fiesta booths, getting birthday and anniversary presents for the WGM and WGP and if desired, making arrangements for their quilts and license plates. After you've made all the arrangements, you then have to coordinate things at the events themselves, including seating for the Grand Officers and their escorts, check lists for different set up and introduction things, collecting and distributing presents to the Grand Officers and such other gopher tasks as arise. You also learn to carry around a kit or box with anything you think you may need to help out any Grand Officer at any time. I think my best rescue in 2009 was made possible by my timely possession of a seam ripper and the ability to run in high heels. :-) There are other duties that vary from year to year. I understand that this year's Grand Marshal was responsible for coordinating with the Deputy Grand Matrons also. In my year, the WGM had a chairman of deputies who was in charge of that. But I was in charge of making the WGM's and WGP's hotel reservations and I am told that my big sister did not have to do that. Some years you get other gifts or arrange other celebratory events. It seems to go down the lines with each person sort of setting expectations based on what they did when it was their turn. So basically, if the WGM and the WGP are Mom and Dad to the Grand Family, the Grand Marshal gets to be the older sister who is put in charge of her younger siblings, the Appointive Grand Officers. The analogy works best if you think of the elected officers as the Grand Marshal's older siblings, whom she also helps out enormously, but for whom she is less answerable because we are supposed to know how to do what we are doing and for the most part have been to the events and such before. The Grand Marshal is still an invaluable resource for the elected officers, and it is important to accord her the courtesy of keeping her informed on where we are and when we are coming to what and such because she is supposed to know where all the Grand Officers are at any given time. Besides, each of us ladies has been there and done that and knowing how hard the job is, we wouldn't want to make it any tougher on our little sister than it already is. But herding cats into a room full of rocking chairs is easy compared to keeping track of thirty-four adults, all of whom have cars and ATM cards. The emblem of the Marshal is the baton and it is customary for the WGM and WGP to present their Grand Marshal with a baton of office for them to use and then keep. But there were times when I wish that someone had had the foresight to hollow out the ends of my baton and put a little lead shot in there. A baton with a little more heft and balance sure would have come in handy a time or two. Oh well. Sigh! Because the Grand Marshal does so very much for everyone in her Grand Family, there is something very special about her reception because you have an added sense of happiness and gratitude in seeing her get honored by the members of the Order. You know that she has really earned every kind remark and every bit of applause. I was lucky enough to get to make the gift presentation to the Grand Marshal (every Grand Officer picks another's name out of a hat at the beginning of the year to do this) and tell her how much all of us appreciate everything she has done all year, with another ten weeks or so to come. Of course in return for this year of constant work from the Grand Marshal, there is an expectation that those who chose her and the appointives who served with her will do all sorts of things for her during her journey up the Grand Line, like when I helped with my big sister's Pre-Revealing because I was an appointive officer in her Grand Family of 2008. After you've had a person take care of you for an entire year, you really do enjoy getting to help her out as her years of service go forward. That part is a lot of fun. It was also another juxaposition event for me between my Star world and my SCA world. There were three more SCA people at the Grand Marshal's reception that snagged me to say hello and greet the visiting Royal Peer. :-) I fear that the word has gotten out and has spread through the South. But more than that was the fact that for me, the Grand Marshal's job felt very familiar. In the SCA, when a new royal couple is going to ascend to the throne, they often choose a person to be in charge of those who will serve them as lords and ladies in waiting. This person is usually called the Head of Court or Chief Lady, depending on the region. As it happens, I have served as Head of Court five times, so many of the tasks associated with Grand Marshal were not totally new to me. Hotel room blocks, that was new, since SCA people camp in pavilions and tents, but on the other hand, I didn't have to keep a list of what size tent each person had to lay out the Royal Encampment. Restaurant reservations were also new but I didn't have to find a steward to cook meals for twenty and thirty people at a time, so I think that one was a wash. Keeping track of who was going to be at what events and when was not new. That one is the same for both. Getting presents was not new. I did the gift baskets for most of my royals during their reigns and using gift bags instead of baskets was awesome. Do you have any idea how much room in the car eight full gift baskets can take up? The whole back seat sometimes. Or what sort of a pain it is to transport fifteen dozen roses in buckets half full of water to a camp site so that they can be given out as tokens during a tournament without getting water on every floor surface in your car? It's bad enough getting them into the car and driving to the site, but some sites don't let you drive on the grass, so the last quarter mile can be the real killer. Even with the experience of having done similar things though, the job of Grand Marshal is one of those things that is totally rewarding to do well and absolutely nothing anyone would want to do a second time. This weekend I will be in Union City and Santa Maria.