Pandas, Snow Leopards and Star, Oh My!

This past weekend was the first O-Vent ever held, a combination of the Official Visits (Social Style) to the three districts of the San Diego and Imperial County areas and the San Diego Event, which has been an annual association wide social event for many years. The ladies coined the term O-Vent to indicate this combination and it was GREAT! We all gathered at the San Diego Zoo, which has a group gathering/party area on the left of the main gate. They put up a tent for us and set up tables and chairs and a podium mike for the program. The tent was a bit warm, but the weather has been hot and cold in February all over the state, so it is tough to figure out if you want your tent sides up or sides down and they charge to change, so we managed just fine. The program started with a presentation on service dogs. Service dogs is a national project for the three years from 2009 to 2012 and our local representative for the project has chosen to concentrate on service dogs to help returning veterans who were disabled in the line of duty. There is a great group in San Diego that train service dogs to perform all kinds of tasks, like unzipping things and taking off socks and shoes and even opening the refrigerator. Thank goodness no one has taught my cats how to do that one! We also had a demonstration of tasks that service dogs do for their human companions, including a dog that has been taught to brace for a lady with poor balance. It is amazing what these dogs can do for people. They are trained for almost two years before being matched up with a person and the person has to be trained too. After the program, we had a great lunch and lots of fun and fellowship. There were just under two hundred people and everyone I spoke with had a wonderful time. After lunch were the speech moments, but I had to listen from outside to some of that because I just got too hot in the tent and I am sensitive to heat. But I could hear pretty well from the shade just outside the tent. Heat and me are a bad combination. I can get really heat exhausted, especially when I am in an enclosed space, like a tent, with little air movement, but after twenty minutes or so outside, I was fine. Our event tickets included admission to the zoo and all its attractions for the day and also a pass good to come back to the zoo in the next thirty days. All of us out of towners, and quite a few local members too, donated their passes to be given to our local youth groups so that they can have a free fund event day at the zoo too. What a great way to spend the day with our San Diego members. I hope they try something like that again. Of course, with all new things must come some carpet sucking and this was no different. Most of the grumblings were the same things I hear every time there are social OVs since some people don't like events that are not formal and traditional. (I think that every group has a few of this kind of carpet sucker - they usually start their remarks with "Well, back in the old days. . . ") But there was one grumble that was a toughie and maybe there is a way to work around it. Usually, there is no charge for the members attending an Official Visit event. There is usually a charge for association events because they usually include a meal and entertainment. With this combination event, there was a charge because the event included the meal and the zoo entrance, so everyone attending had to pay. I loved the event and hope to see more like it, but I wonder if there might have been a way to split it up a little differently so that people who just wanted to see the presentation and hear the remarks could do that for free and those who wanted to stay for the meal and the social hour and the entertainment could pay. I don't know if it is possible and I don't know if trying to do that would kill the event because people wouldn't stay. But it is something to talk about and think about. I just hope that talking and thinking doesn't kill the idea because even if it is not solvable, I don't think it has to be an event crushing problem. Maybe it just becomes something that gets done in an area every other year instead of every year or something like that. I had a great time though. Next weekend, I am in Bellflower for a Transitional.