Very Official Visits

Thirteen weeks down (a whole quarter!), thirty-nine left to make a difference.

This past weekend were our first three Official Visits, two Social style with lunches and one evening Traditional with dessert afterwards.  They were awesome!

The first one put on a youth program and different members of the youth groups did different presentations.  One of the DeMolay members did a Native American dance that was really impressive.  Probably tiring for someone my age, but he seemed effortless!  Then one of the Rainbow girls gave the gavel lecture often used when the Worthy Advisor is presented with her gavel at Installation.  She did it very well, with real feeling in her words.  Then two of the Job's Daughters gave the Robe talk, which presents the traditions represented by the robes worn at their meetings.  One of the girls gave the talk while the other showed the various bits being discussed.  I could tell that they were nervous, but they did a great job!

I loved that the items in the buffet line had ingredients written on labels next to the trays.  Boy did that save me!  Some of the tuna sandwiches had olives in them, to which I am allergic, but with the labels, I was able to take some other ones that were yummy!  It also helped me avoid the ham, which I am sure was delicious for someone else.  And the berries they had - yum twice!

The drive from the afternoon to the evening event really showed the truth of some of our instructions to our Grand Officers.  We had warned them, early and often, that sometimes the trip between events would not leave time for meals so they should always carry snacks in the car and not just sugar, but stuff like trail mix, peanut butter and crackers, jerky, etc., stuff that won't spoil but which provides a little substance beyond sweets.  Well, we pulled in to the hotel at 5:45 pm and it takes about half an hour for an entire Grand Family to check in to a hotel, so that didn't leave a lot of time for the last people checking in to get much in the way of food because they also had to change clothes.  I imagine that anyone who didn't take us seriously about the snack thing before will do so now. Sigh!

Anyway, we went to our first Traditional Official Visit in Fairfield and it was splendid!  The hosts' welcome was hilarious and I was very grateful that I had done my funny speech earlier that day and had a serious one for that night because I would not have wanted to compete with those two great comedians!  The poor greeters had to go after them, but they did a good job by not trying for the funny but going with a lovely overview of the area instead.

The officers chosen to do their ritual work did a great job and some of the officers really had great feeling in their recitations!  And without all the changing of chairs and introducing every person in the room, we were done in the Chapter room right on time, at 1.5 hours.  As a result, everyone went into the dining room for refreshments and we had a whole hour to visit with the members before people started getting tired and wanting to go home.  Many members were delighted with the time and that we had so much more chance to visit with them.  I have often seen Traditional OVs that go over two hours in the Chapter room and then a lot of members seem tired and just leave to go home instead of coming in for refreshments.  It was really nice to get social time with everyone.

Now were have been going easy on our Grand Officers in that we haven't had any really early mornings yet.  Both mornings, they didn't have to be in the lobby before 9:30 am.  I hope they don't get too used to that because we are going to have a few really early mornings.  I sort of tried to plan away from those though, since I am not an early bird.  Hoot!  Hoot!

Sunday we got to attend another Social OV with lunch.  I had a lovely minestrone soup and my escort had a Polish chicken soup which was very interesting because it had cloves in it and usually we only put cloves in our soup when it is a game bird so that was a nice novelty for him.  The program was about the partnership between the Scottish Rite Language Clinic and the University of the Pacific that provides free therapy to children with language disorders.  It was inspirational to see how the Masonic Family is contributing in that community.

Next weekend, we have our second of the two Deputy Brush Up Schools, this one in San Marino.

Charity Begins At Home

Eleven weeks down, forty-one left to make a difference.

This past weekend was all about meetings.  Now in my work, I sometimes have meetings, but not too often.  My Worthy Grand Patron, on the other hand, is used to days in a row packed with meetings, so I think it is easier for him.

Of course I am always reminding myself about the scene in the West Wing (loved the early seasons of that show!) when one of the ladies says something and it percolates up through the ranks and the next thing she knows, her idea is going to happen and she is confused and is told that we play with live ammunition here.  There's also a scene where the President says that if he opens his mouth, the result will be seen on Wall Street and that he is a human starting gun.  Sometimes it feels that way a little bit and I have learned that there is no such thing as idle speculation when the Worthy Grand Matron says it, so be careful! :-)

We are very excited about a new plan for charitable giving to increase awareness of our charities and hopefully our giving.  We are going to hire a Director of Charitable Giving to work with both our Home and our Foundation.  We've had people in the past who served in this role on a part time basis, but to get real results, you need a real, full time person.  So we are going to set some milestones and performance standards and give it a try.  We should be advertising the job soon and hope we get some great applicants.  I have my fingers crossed and my toes too.

This week has also been spent on ramping up for our Deputy Schools coming up this weekend and in two weeks.  There is so much to learn and teach and so little time it seems to cover everything.  I have no doubt that we will run into late nights again.

And of course, I still have a day job that I would like to keep.  Good thing that sleep is optional.  Unfortunately, cutting the candle in half so I can burn four ends doesn't help me watch my food or my weight, so I really need to get a handle on that before none of my clothes fit as we start our Official Visits.  I am starting to get flyers for those and they look really awesome!  We have lots of fun events coming up too!  That will be nice because the all meetings all the time part is necessary, but not so fun.

This weekend, we have our Northern Deputy Brush Up School in Palo Alto.