Why We Go Nuts

Seven weeks down, forty-five left to make a difference.

This past weekend we had two of our five All Member Instructionals.  These have been called different things at different times, All Officers Instructionals, Grand Chapter Instructionals, etc., but basically, these are practice/demonstration sessions for how to perform our Ritual ceremonies correctly.

This year, we are focusing on our Opening ceremony, Balloting and a part of our Initiation ceremony called the Golden Chain.  All of these are bits that involve most if not all the officers and all of them involve different officers working together to time their movements so they end up where they are supposed to and preferably at the same time.  Since they can be a little complicated, having people practice is good.

Over the years, I have seen these events done as two, three or four hour sessions and each year that I have been on the road, we have done between zero and about twelve of them.  While zero is pretty easy, twelve usually involve a fair bit of traveling all over the state and working them in around other events and holidays usually means that they are not done until some time in February, which is a little bit unfortunate because earlier is better when it comes to this sort of thing.  The officers are installed in November and start doing their work in December, so the closest you can get the instruction to the beginning of our Chapter year the better.

But each time I have attended these, I have felt that something was missing.  While we would demonstrate the work for the members, they were not getting a chance to practice with us there to help and guide them.  The problem was, there wasn't any time.  Doing all the work in about three hours is a very tight schedule and just doesn't allow for the extra time it takes to get people up and down and in and out.

So for this year, we decided to try a full day event and include interactive Q&A and practice by the members.  Doing that required us going to a 9:30 am to 4:30 pm schedule, a pretty full day, with some allowance/arrangement made for lunch.  But we put it together, had our Team Leaders set up halls and meals for those who wanted to buy a meal, although everyone was given the option of bringing their lunch if they'd rather because we don't charge for Ritual instruction, and hoped that "if we built it, they would come."

There were those people who said that the format would not work because people would not be willing to spend an entire weekend day on Ritual work and I feared at times that attendance would suffer for it.  But I also knew that some people feel the opposite way.  Some people feel that if you are going to drive two or three hours each way for anything, they want the event to have substance so that they are at the event longer than the time they spend driving.  So we put it together and then we prayed. :-)

I confess that while I had every confidence in our format, I didn't imagine the amazing response we have had.  We've had to add chairs and then more chairs in every hall so far.  We added two rows of chairs in Chico!  There wasn't an empty seat!  I printed off 500 agendas, thinking that I would need about a hundred at each of the five AMIs and we've run through those.  I've printed off another 300 for next weekend and while I think that is enough, I am ready to find a Kinko's if I have to!  Wow!

The other part that made it great was that people seemed to have a good time.  We had a few each time that had to leave at lunch or during our midday break, but actually just a few, and people were leaving happy about what they had heard and learned.  They were excited and jazzed and it was an important Ritual practice.  I sure hope we can make them this happy when we are doing something that is purely for fun.

But I have discovered one of the key elements as to why so many Grand Officers go a little nuts this time of year.  You see, when we ballot, we usually encourage the Organist to pick a song for the Star Point Officers to use and then we use that song when they ballot to help them with their timing and organization at Grand Officers' School and Deputy School.  It's bad enough, but bearable, having them do it those two days.  But now we are balloting eight or ten times  in a day, two days in a row, to the same darn song!  I can sit here at my computer and still hear it playing!  I suppose it is better than hearing voices (and far better than doing what the voices tell me to do :-),  but who knows how many weeks it will take to get the song out of my head.  I mean I avoid shopping malls at this time of year for the same reason.  Even my friends who like Christmas carols say they get completely tired and postal hearing them over and over again in the mall.  So there's no doubt that hearing the same song too many times can make you a bit bonkers.  Let's hope that I can recover over the Christmas break.

Next weekend, I am in Riverside and Chowchilla.