Up and Down and All Around

This past weekend, we finished the last School of Instruction and the last few All Member Instructionals, getting set to start the Official Visits for this year.  I understand that the Transitionals have also been finished for this year, so all of the Ritual Instruction to be done by the Grand Family is over and now it is time to see how well some of those lessons have been learned, hopefully with the help of refreshers from our local Deputy Grand Matrons.

One of the things that we don't seem to have a good way to measure is how much people actually learn at the Instructionals and how much value it has for them.  Also, we don't know which parts are better or less useful.  Without this data, it is tough to try to figure out how to improve so that we can maximize the value to our membership.  I know that we have a committee that is starting to put together some questionnaires for the members to fill out, but we will have to see if that yields good numbers of responses and good data.  I sure hope so because data lets us aim our efforts instead of shooting in the dark.

The quality of the instruction will be particularly important this year, as I am expecting that most if not all of the Official Visits to be Traditional style.  As I understand it, the instructions to the Worthy Matrons were that the Worthy Grand Matron prefers that Districts that did a Social Style OV last year do a Traditional one this year.  Nothing was said about a preference for those Chapters that did Traditional last year.  But looking at a spread sheet that I started putting together back in 2008, it looks to me like in years where each district is allowed to choose, certain ones always choose Traditional and certain ones always choose Social, so if you tell the Socials to do Traditional, the odds of any of the ones that did Traditional last year doing Social this year are slim - not impossible, but thin.  And of course, since we are all careful to state preferences rather than giving orders, I suppose someone out there who did Social last year might do Social this year anyway, but ironically, that would be a bit anti-social. :-)

So expecting all Traditional Official Visits fills me with some mixed emotions.  On the one hand, our Ritual work is amazingly beautiful when it is done well.  Unfortunately, it can be like sitting through nails on a chalkboard when it is done poorly.  So first, a quiet prayer must be offered up that all of the officers will have practiced diligently and will be prepared to do a splendid job so that every Visit will go smoothly and enjoyably.  Otherwise, sitting through one of these can feel like being in the back seat of the car with your Grandmother driving down the freeway at thirty-five miles an hour and wondering why everyone is honking at her.  Again, a quiet prayer that there will be no problem.

The other thing that becomes relevant, especially for some of the Grand Officers, is that in the usual course of things, if a District does not have an installed officer for a particular station, the Grand Officer fills in and does the work for the Official Visit.  Now when you know about this in advance, it is easy to give yourself a quick refresher before you get to the event.  But I have been to several OVs where the Grand Officer found out they were filling in when they got there.  I myself have sat in as the Ritual officer at least once every year I have served except the last year - there was always at least one Conductress at every Traditional OV I attended last year, so I dodged the bullet on that one.

Of course, the Grand Officers have been doing an awesome job of their Ritual work at all the Instructionals and Schools, so they will do great if they have to do their work, but sometimes it is just nervous-making not to know if you are going to have to "perform", so hopefully there will be few surprises.

Next weekend, I will be in San Marino, Yorba Linda, Orange and Newhall.