Off To See The Wizard

This past weekend was so full of events and plans coming together that I had to come back to work to get some rest.

Saturday was my reception and the announcement of Mr. Wizard, the man I have asked to run for the office of Associate Grand Patron this October, who will, assuming we are both elected, serve with me as the co-head of the Order in 2013.  I think sometimes that the Grand Conductress reception is the biggest event in the trip up the Grand Line because everyone wants to know who you have chosen and even those who think they know want confirmation.

But the demographic of the event was very interesting.  Usually, a lot of Past Grand Matrons and Past Grand Patrons show up to the reception because they've all been there themselves and want to know who is coming next.  By a lot I mean usually a couple dozen, so I arranged for forty-eight chairs on the stage, twenty-four on the ladies side and twenty-four on the men's side, with an aisle down the middle, figuring that the front row of six on each side would be taken by the speakers and presiding officers and then the back three rows on the ladies side would be full and a row or two of men.  Then I had almost four hundred chairs set up in the room theater style for the audience.  Usually, the stage is full and ladies are sitting on the men's side because we run out of chairs on the ladies' side, and usually there are lots of empty chairs around the audience because people sit more on the ends and not in the middle or there are round tables and no one wants the chairs that you have to turn around.

Well, I may have had more empty chairs on the stage than in the audience.  Almost every chair in the audience was taken, but I had twenty-five or so empty seats on the stage.  If I had realized the numbers were going to fall that way, I would have moved the Grand Officers to the stage and freed up a row in the audience, but who knew.  At least I can be happy that there was a great turn out and that I had the room sized correctly because there were just a few empty chairs, so everyone had a place to sit but we didn't feel like a really tiny nut in a really big shell.

Everything came out awesome!  The photographer is a man who I know from my professional world, who had never been to an Eastern Star or Masonic event before and told me today that he never knew that I was a spiritual person before, and that he felt inspired by my speech at the reception.  Maybe I have to get him a petition to a local Lodge.  I wonder where he lives.  He has offered to set up an on line file of pictures for me so I can send the link to my girls and they can print out pictures that they want and we are going to see if that works.

I should have the video in a week or so and then I can start to remember what people said and what happened.  When you are in the midst of it, you are so busy being in the moment, that you hardly remenber anything!  I remember just bits and flashes, but luckily the electronic memory can bring it all back!

Then, if that wasn't enough, we had our workshop on Sunday, with a hundred people for leadership and management training.  That was a mixed group of my girls and their little sisters and their Associate Patrons to be and assorted guests and we had a great time presenting modules on strategic planning, budgeting, motivating volunteers and working with our Lodges along with interesting exercises and discussions.  I am hopeful that we will help improve the leadership skills in our Chapters and be able to accomplish more with each year as we grow into the new Millenium!  The attendees were enthusiastic and fun.

As is customary, I showed the girls the dress that I have chosen for them for our Worthy Matron year.  However, I failed slightly in my intelligence gathering.  I did not find out if the materials were all washable, so I have a task on my list and luckily my girls are forgiving because we had half the workshop still to go and they were kind enough to refrain from lynching me for not knowing this fact about the dress.  Most seemed to like it, or if they didn't, they didn't say so to me. :-)

It was a tremendous amount of work and planning, but the results were spectacular and have proven one of my basic rules of Eastern Star - everything is more fun when it is over and you can look back and say Wow, I did that!

Next weekend I am going to three receptions, in Ridgecrest, Yorba Linda and San Pedro.