The Beginning of the End

Thirty-nine weeks down, thirteen left to make a difference.

If this was a baseball game, my foot would be firmly stepping on third base as I round the corner headed for home plate.  Just as in baseball, you start running faster as you round third because you'd really like to hit home plate standing up instead of sliding in.  That's what I am hoping; that no sliding will be needed.

So now we are in the wrap up time of year.  Everything that we meant to do is either finished or well underway, with the exception of those things that will be done at our Annual Session in October and the planning and set up for that is also well underway.  Today I made what should be my last To Do list for the year. On it, I listed everything that I need to finish in that remaining thirteen weeks.  I will look at it again tomorrow to see if I have forgotten anything.

At the moment, the list is two pages long and most of the items are big ones squeezed into one or two lines, like "Write Session Script".  That one little line means about twenty-five to forty hours worth of work (four to six hours for each section of the Session, six sessions needing scripts).  Some of the items have long lead times, like design, purchase and have manufactured WGM/WGP Youth Service Award medals, so they have to be in process now to have any chance of being ready in time.  Some of them will take getting things from others and some I can do on my own, but all of them have to be done and thirteen weeks is what there is left to do them.

It is exciting to think about the upcoming session, but also sad to know that there are things that just won't get done and someone else will have to carry them forward, if they choose to do so.  For example, I have come to realize that we desperately need a real Secretary/Treasurer's Handbook.  The one we have is really a glossary and detail instructions, which should be the back of a real handbook, but the front pages, the ones that give step by step guides and decision making trees doesn't exist.  Unfortunately, I came to this realization too late to appoint a special committee to do this, so if it is going to happen, those who come after will have to do it.  It is not something that was on my list of things to do this year, so I don't feel too badly about not getting to it since my list was really pretty full and it looks like I will finish everything that I planned to do, Lord willing and the Crik don't rise, but there is still a realization that with thirteen weeks to go, I have to focus on doing what I planned to do and leave extras like this to the future.

We've had some of our Grand Officer receptions and I am so proud of my Officers.  They've had a message in their remarks and I can tell by the attendance and enthusiasm that they've done a great job!  We have four more in the next two weekends, which are connected by a week long northern run, so we have eleven events in nine days in a row.  Wow!  We'll have to make sure to include rest breaks and fun trips so we still all like each other when the nine days are over.

Next weekend we start in Rancho Cordova, hop up to Chico and then base in Redding, from which we will go to Weaverville, Chico, Quincy, Redding and Mt. Shasta, after which we will relocate to the coast and work our way down through Fortuna, Ukiah, Sebastopol and Healdsburg - Wow some more!