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.