Always More Paperwork

April and May (March a little bit, but not so much) are the season of the Deputy Grand Matron Reports to the Grand Line Officers, ta da! What a mouthful.

If you've never been a deputy or a Grand Line Officer, you may never have seen one of these before. It's a two page form (with a third page that is for the Grand Secretary, but sometimes we get sent that one too) that the Deputy fills out for each Chapter in her District. The format has changed a bit from year to year, as each Worthy Grand Matron can choose the information that she wants to receive, but the basic parts have remained fairly consistent as long as I have seen them. There is a set of headers identifying the Deputy, District, Chapter, etc., and then room for the Deputy to list the dates on which various practices and meetings occurred. Then there are a number of questions about the status of the offices and officers, asking if they are all filled, if people learned their work, if anyone is copying or printing out of our Ritual, which is not allowed, if there are any outstanding officers who are doing an extraordinary job. There is also a question on the harmony and condition of the Chapter - you get all kinds of answers to that one because it is not very defined.

Then there are some questions on the location at which the Chapter meets. I am a bit puzzled sometimes at that because most Chapters are meeting where the Chapter has met for years and why you would ask this over and over again is a little confusing to me. Also, we never seem to do anything with the information, so I am not sure how it helps. I did work with Aims and Objectives on getting a spread sheet together of information on the meeting places to help me earlier this year to find places for Transitionals and I hope to use it next year as I finish up the calendar, but I would think that you would only need the place information once every five years or so. But maybe there is a reason I have not heard or learned yet. I will keep my eyes open on that.

The second page of the form asks for recommendations for Grand Chapter Committees, Grand Representatives, Deputy Grand Matrons and Grand Officers. This is the most valuable part for me right now, although I am told that when I am Worthy Grand Matron, it will be the first page that matters most, which makes sense because by then I will already have chosen my people. What I don't understand is why the form asks for contact information and the years served as Worthy Matron or Patron, but doesn't ask for the reasons why the person recommended would be good for the proposed job. I wonder if this is a bit of a left over from before the computer era. When I get these forms from the Deputies, I send a list of the recommended people, all of them, without any marking as to what the person was recommended for, to the Grand Secretary and someone sends me back the member records for all the people listed. The member record gives basic contact information, all of a person's service history, every office held at the local and state level, and the Chapters in which they are members, and so on. Before we were computerized, I can see where the contact info and stuff was important, but ironically, it is very seldom filled in on the form, so I guess most of the Deputies don't know why I need it either.

Once I get the member record from Grand Chapter, I write on it who recommended them, and what they were recommended for, and then I read it over and make my own decision on what I think would be the best service for the person and then I put the record into one of my two Big Binders Of All, one of which is for honored positions and the other of which is for proposed committee members. When I get member resumes, they go into the proposed committee member binder unless I have a recommendation sheet for them that I filed in the other binder, in which case I put the resume in the other binder with the recommendation sheet. I am hoping that my Big Binders of All will help me next year in finding my honored members and to fill my committees. I have had some committee Co-Chairs to work on this year, but next year is the massive crunch, so hopefully all this paperwork now will help me out then.

After finishing up the recommendations, the Deputy Reports go in my District Binder, which has all the Chapters in each district behind a number tab. I am hoping that collecting the reports for the same Chapter over these years will help me understand the situation in the Chapter when I have to be the one to consider decisions and situations, so we will see in the future if that was a good idea or not.

Next weekend, I am going to the Junior Warden's Retreat, put on by my Grand Lodge counterpart. I am excited to be there to support him and also to see what they are doing as I contemplate how we can improve leadership and management training for our Sisters and Brothers.

Belgium, Yes Belgium

This past week was an adventure and a half. We just did seven Official Visits in six days. Wow! Since they were all "relatively" close to the Bay Area, lucky me, I got to work three of the four work days and then rush out the door to get to somewhere else. Doing all these OVs in a row, and taking Wednesday off work because Tuesday night was just a hair too far to go home, really threw me for a loop on trying to remember what day it was and where we were going next.

Tuesday was not actually Belgium, it was Healdsburg, but I wished several times for my old watch, which showed the day of the week and not just the date on the face. So we started in Healdsburg on Tuesday night with a lovely Social OV with a train theme and learned all about the various train lines that first linked the East and North San Francisco Bay Areas. Listening to the accounts of what folk had to go through just to cross a hundred miles really makes you wonder why we complain so much about the distance we travel to visit other Chapters. On the other hand, they did not have traffic jams, but I think the roads were equally bad in both eras. I learned the difference between standard, narrow and wide gauge rails and discovered that we have yet another annoying thing for which we can thank the British system of weights and measures. :-)

Because of the distance back home from Healdsburg, we decided to take Wednesday off and have a lovely spa day. My escort and I and three others in the Grand Family went to the Raindance Spa in Sonoma (Great place! Friendly staff and nice facilities). I went for the whole enchilada -since I don't spa very often, when I do, I like to do it all, so I had a massage, facial, spa manicure and spa pedicure. After I win the lottery, I am definitely getting myself a massage guy with a travel table who can come to my house and do the massage thing two or three times a week. I am putting this near the top of my list, right after quitting work and taking that cruise around the world (36 countries in 105 days, valet service and pets allowed in the suite grade cabins - you see, it really is on my list.) I bet they have a massage guy on the boat too! We had a lovely lunch at the spa and eventually had to shower and dress and head to Martinez for a traditional OV where we did Good of the Order in the dining room after the meeting was closed and had a philosophical discussion about the symbolism in our Order. But after that OV, we had to drive home and I had to head to work before driving to Burlingame for another Traditional OV, this time with a baseball theme.

It was on Thursday that I began to doubt not only the day of the week, but the year. There we were with the baseball diamond marked on the floor and baseball shirts. We sang Take Me Out to the Ball Game and ate hot dogs and chips. The dislocation effect however, is because we sang that song and ate more hot dogs than I even want to contemplate in 2008, when baseball was a theme element for the year. I didn't know you could get flashbacks off a hot dog! The entertainment was a great spoof of Abbott and Costello's Who's on First. As Grand Conductress, I am now "Why?" which makes good sense since I am often the person asking this question about old customs and traditions. :-)

On Friday, we attended a Social OV with a Cocktails at Tiffany's theme. I got to wear one of my black cocktail suits, which I usually only wear for work events and received many lovely compliments on it. The light refreshments were a bit overwhelming in quantity and variety and proved what I have been telling people when asked how I am doing - I am getting short of money, time and sleep, but I am in NO danger of starving! There was a nice silent auction for the WGM's project and some good speakers about scholarships and our scholarship fund. On Saturday, we headed to Lodi for a Traditional OV and then to Murphys for a Social Style OV where The Great Panda Express Train Robbery mystery story was enacted for our enjoyment. We got to dress for the Old West and I got to visit with many friends from the area. Murphys is also fun for shopping and many of those Gold Country have lovely antique shops. Finally, on Sunday, we headed to Merced, where we had the most fabulous breakfast with far more dishes served than I could even remember, let alone eat, and then our final OV of the trip with an Easter Egg Hunt theme.

I knew that week long trips could be exhausting, but working during most of it made it ever so much more so and my heart goes out to all of the north folk who also worked during the week as we attended these OVs. The two week long trips I am looking at having will at least be far enough away that I don't have to get up early to go to work because I will only be doing some work in the hotel and in the car. Whew! Next weekend we are resting and recuperating, I hope.

Universal Budget Woes

This past weekend has been quite interesting. As I flew south, everyone was wondering if the Federal government was going to shut down or find a way to keep going, a scenario that I remember best from an episode of the West Wing, a series I enjoyed immensely. I knew also that Governor Brown has California all in a tizzy over the State budget too, with anticipated shortfalls all over the place. In some ways I find that ironic because a fair number of the spending policies with automatic bumps in good economic times, but no automatic decreases in bad times, which created a big chunk of the current problems were put in place the last time that Brown was governor. Talk about your chickens coming home to roost! I was hoping to escape budget woes when I went south this past weekend, but alas, my wishes were not meant to be. I was merely dropping from the furious financial frying pan into the fretful fiscal fire. Specifically, this weekend was the first preliminary meeting of the Finance Committee to prepare all the budgets for next year, which runs from October 1 through September 30. I think that no one may realize how many different budgets that comes to because different groups put them together, but the poor (and exceedingly hard working) Finance Committee has to review them all. I think that we had six to give the preliminary look this past weekend: Grand Chapter Budget Grand Chapter Week Budget Eastern Star Senior Living Community Budget Eastern Star Professional Plaza Budget Endowment Budget and last, but not least, Foundation Budget I have found that when you have a really hard job to do, sometimes it is easier to start with the hardest task because once that is out of the way, everything else is all down hill. But when we started on the Grand Chapter Budget, it felt more like having one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel. I have never felt so much like I was looking at a situation that had rented the farm with an option to buy. Last year at the Grand Chapter session, the Finance Committee had proposed a per capita increase of $4.50 per member. It failed by a nine vote margin. But this past weekend, we learned that they had been neither kidding nor exaggerating when they said that we needed the increase. Over the past four or five years, everything that could be cut has been cut to the bone, and even beyond, and as uncontrollable expenses, such as insurance, go up and revenue comes down, pretty soon you are making stone soup (nail soup to some with Eastern European antecedents), but no one is coming along to contribute real ingredients. Have you ever gotten to the point in your life when you look at a bad situation and then you look around the table, hoping that someone has a brilliant solution, but there is nothing but silence? I can only imagine that it must be a little bit like being told that you have cancer and there is a medicine that will save your life, but your insurance company won't pay for it and you have no way to get the money, so you know that even though you don't have to be doomed, you are doomed unless someone steps up to the plate to save you? This past weekend was a lot like that. Now I know that there are people in the same boat out there, people who have lost their job and can't find another one and are spending their savings and hoping that they find a way to make more money before their savings runs out and they don't know what to do besides pray and keep trying. But it is very hard to wrap oneself around the idea that if just a few people don't come around and vote yes to pass the per capita increase, we may be in the same spot. After the meetings were over, we went to a truly wonderful Social OV with a delicious dinner beforehand and then an evening of entertainment by members of our youth groups, who also helped serve the dinner. There were many wonderful pieces done. I especially enjoyed a couple of songs done by the choir of the local Job's Daughter's Bethel and I am wondering when I will have the chance to hear them again. But it was hard to get into the festive mood knowing what I had heard at the Finance meeting. At one point, towards the end of the Finance meeting, I made a comment to the others sitting at the table that I believe in the members of our Order and that I have faith that when our members learn about the situation we face, when they see that we have done our best to close the gap and make ends meet but that there just isn't anything left to cut, just like the unemployed family that is trying to choose between food, heat, water and medicine and just can't cut any more, that our members will step up and do what needs to be done. Now I get to wait six months and see if my faith is justified. This weekend starts tonight for me and goes through Sunday. I will be in Healdsburg, Martinez, San Francisco, Castro Valley, Lodi, Murphys and Merced.

The Past and the Future

This past weekend at one of the Official Visits, I saw a tradition repeat that I first saw in 2008. It was cool then, but it is even cooler now. In the Central Valley, there is a Lodge that has a Bible which is decades old. The Bible was given to the Lodge by a member who asked that it be preserved and that the signatures of leaders of Masonic bodies and others be collected in it. It has the signatures of three Masonic Presidents in it, although not the latest ones, which I hope they get sometime soon, but it is also signed each year by the Worthy Grand Matron and Patron of the Grand Chapter of California. When I first saw this Bible signing, in 2008, when I was serving as Grand Warder, it was a lovely ceremony and I was thrilled to see the book. I took pictures of the 2008 signatures and also of the page with the Presidents on it. But at the time, I never dreamed that I would perhaps someday have the opportunity to sign it and it is something that I can truly look forward to. I understand that they have over five hundred signatures in the Bible so far and add to it each year. Wow! It is particularly cool to me because I have quite a few friends who are Past Grand Matrons and Patrons and I am also touched at the thought of being in this Bible with all of them, as a part of history. I hope I get the chance to do it. :-) We also attended one day of the Grand Assembly session for the International Order of the Rainbow for Girls. I have been to that several times before, but I always enjoy seeing the girls and their enthusiasm. One of the things that I find most touching about being with the Rainbow girls is the sense of happiness and amazement that I feel in the room every year. Here I am in a room with several hundred teenage girls and I can put my purse down on my chair and walk away from it and give no thought to anything happening. Here are several hundred teenage girls and they are going to be polite and respectful and kind (well maybe not always perfectly to their friends, but definitely to me. :-) What incredible girls and what an incredible organization that helps them grow into confident, mature young ladies! The only sad part of the afternoon is that they do a ceremony for the girls who are aging out of the Rainbow and there were a lot of tears as these girls realize that their membership in Rainbow is coming to a close. That is sad to watch. (On the other hand, Sisters and Brothers leave our Order in a box carried by six people, so maybe aging out is not so bad. :-) Next weekend, I am in Yorba Linda, South Pasadena and Bellflower.