Repondez S'il Vous Plait

This past weekend was the last Official Visit for 2012 and another Grand Officer reception.  While I was reminded that the next Official Visit in this State will be mine, causing a momentary heart beat skip, I was able to calm myself by remember that the next Official Visit is still six months from now, so a bit less immediate than it sounded.  Whew!

But the reception, combined with a comment about the Worthy Matron dresses, combined with getting the workshop done, combined with getting the invitations for the Revealing of the 2013 Grand Officers printed brought to mind an interesting topic that does have some elements of frustration in it.  Now you may think that a reception, a dress, a workshop and a Revealing have nothing in common, but they do.  What they have in common are that they are all things that have a response request and deadline.

I have discovered, to my dismay, but not my shock I confess, that some people are really bad about letting you know they are coming to a free event.  In fact, there are some occasions where I don't even bother worrying about RSVPs anymore because I just know that I won't get them.  As for orders being on time, many people are wonderful about that, but enough are not that it really creates bother.

On receptions and other events like the Revealing, where the event is open to whomever wants to come, the Past Grands as a rule are very, very good about letting people know that they are coming which is important because you want to have chairs in the East for sure and maybe courtesies also for them, so that part works very well.  But I have pretty much given up on getting a general membership count for such things.  I've now had three receptions, Grand Warder, Grand Marshal and Grand Conductress, and in each instance I have had to tell my chairman a number to expect based on a guesstimate from previous experience.  For the Warder and Grand Conductress receptions, we pretty much hit our target number spot on.  I may have had twenty empty chairs in the East at my reception last year, but less than a dozen empty in the audience, so that is about as perfect as you can get.  But my Grand Marshal reception popped all expectations and we had to bring in two extra tables and my Chapter members had to eat in the kitchen because they gave their tables to guests.  Yay for my awesome Chapter members, but sigh on not knowing who is coming.

I have the same expectation for the Revealing.  My chairman wanted to know about RSVP information and I told her to go ahead and put an e-mail address or a phone number on the invite, but not to expect that we could actually plan food based on getting those RSVPs because that just doesn't happen.  We have a gigantic room, so I am not worried about running out of seats.  I just hope we get the right amount of food, not too much, not too little because food is expensive and I hate to see it wasted, but I also hate the thought of guests going unsatisfied.  My mother would never live it down if I threw a party and anyone left wanting more food.  Sigh some more!

Of course, it gets more tricky with dress and workshop orders.  On the dress form, which was handed out and then mailed out last year with a due date of March 15, I am told that usually only about thirty people get those things in on time and the other two-thirds of the people tend to trickle them in all summer.  Of course, the fabric can't be ordered until all the orders are in or the ordering is closed, so the ordering has to be held open until about now or lots of people wouldn't get the dress they want.

On the workshop, the deadline was July 6 because I needed to take everything to the printer on July 11 and I needed counts.  Lots of people did sign up on time and that was Awesome!  And there were some people who e-mailed me to tell me that they were coming and wanted to order stuff and had just put the stuff in the mail and they are great too because I don't mind getting the paperwork later if it means that I have the right count for the printer and especially the right count for the caterer.  Food really is expensive!!!

But what do you do with people who mail their stuff late and don't tell you that it is on the way?  You don't want to turn them down because you want them to come and participate and get the materials, but oh what a total bother!  I ordered a few extra things, expecting some lateness because of my experience from the past two years, but I have a feeling that I will still end up making a last minute Kinko's run to get just two or three more somethings ready to go because I really want every single person who can attend or who wants the materials to get them.  Sigh a third time!

Next weekend I will be in El Segundo and Los Angeles.