Planning Ahead and Ahead and Ahead

This week has been very interesting because it has involved lots of planning ahead and then ahead some more, and then ahead some more on top of that. While lots of people over the past two years have told me to just take each year as it comes and deal with one year at a time, I am beginning to think that being a Grand Line Officer is a bit like being pregnant in the sense that when it is over, the memory of what you went through sort of fades away and all you are left with are the happily ever after bits. I mean seriously, who would ever get pregnant a second time with a full and clear memory of feeling like a beached whale and the pain and trauma involved. I am convinced that the survival of the species depends on some selective memory here. Also, I think that God gives us the good kid first to lull us into thinking that this is easier than we feared it would be and that way we trick ourselves into having the second kid who turns out to be the little demon in diapers. So why do I say that this same principle of convenient amnesia applies? Because all those people who said take it one year at a time must have conveniently forgotten how much stuff has to be done seriously early. For example, the Grand Chapter budget is written for expenses from October 1 to September 30 each year. So anything that I am supposed to plan that will happen before September 30, 2012, needs to go into the 2012 budget, which is being prepared right now, in February 2011. So I have to put together the budget now for something we will do in 2012 and that means thinking out what I want to do and how I want to do it too. Oh boy! And then there are events that would fall in the 2012 calendar, which is also in current process. While the lady in line ahead of me puts together her calendar and gives me my event dates, just as I will do next year for my little sister, I have to find the places where the events will be held so that those places can go in the itinerary. The hope is for everything that goes in the itinerary to be turned in no later than the end of July, beginning of August, because the itinerary is printed in time to be sold at Grand Chapter. So the places for my events in 2012 have to be chosen and set up by August 2011. And again, to select places means having a general idea of the shape of the events so as to help determine what sort of place I need to line up. Then there are the committees where you ask the lady in line ahead of you to please appoint your hoped for Chairman as Co-Chair for committees. There are about ten or twelve of these committees where the people that I would like as Chairs should be the previous year's co-Chairs so that they can learn how to do what they do and to create continuity from year to year. I think this system is wonderful and I wish we did it for more committees, but it means finding a dozen or so committee chairs this summer to be appointed in fall 2012, so that they can be Chair for 2013. That seems rather plan ahead to me also. So I am at a bit of a loss to understand how this "one year at a time" thing is really supposed to work. Maybe they only mean it to apply to the first two years, when one is Grand Marshal and has way more than enough stuff to do, and when one is Associate Grand Conductress and is still getting one's Grand Line Officer sea legs. Oh well, we are off and planning. . . Next weekend, I will be in San Diego and Escondido.