It has been a crazy ride these past few months. I definitely took on too much involving all three of the non-profits for which I volunteer. Everything seemed to be happening in April and is still going on into May. I could have easily selected Paul Simon’s “Still Crazy After All These Years.”
For Toastmasters, I was Credentials Chair for the District conference last full weekend of April. It was done virtually so, I saved on travel expenses. My task was to receive the acknowledgment of the various club presidents and vice presidents who intended to participate in the district meeting during the conference. I had to verify their and their club’s eligibility and determine if a quorum was registered to vote on any district business. So it was hurry up and wait, answer emails, and several spreadsheets later that I made my brief report during the business meeting. I was also participating in my local club’s 2x monthly virtual meetings. At least I did not have to travel the 1hr and 45minutes to the meeting location.
At the same time, I was helping coordinate an outdoor concert featuring some young local songwriters. This was in partnership with the Tennessee Arts Commission and our local non-profit, Vision 2020 Inc. It was a cool evening but the songwriters performed well and I was somehow roped into being the emcee.
My volunteer duties with the Macon County Arts Council included helping to coordinate registrations for a performance workshop for local children grades 3 through 12. I had to work with our webmaster as well as other members of the board of MCAC and the two wonderful teachers who developed and directed the workshop and final performance. As treasurer of the Board, I was trying to get everyone involved paid. Thank you TN Arts Commission for your support!
Somehow in between this and that Mother and Rita squeezed in a yard sale. I sold two t-shirts. But, Mother, Rita, Del, Lovie, Seth & their boys, Josh & Vern and their boys did better.
Since January, there have been phone calls, emails and meetings trying to coordinate (with the help of 8 or 10 volunteers) our annual Folk Medicine Festival in Red Boiling Springs. Then there’s the doctors’ appointments (mine and Mother’s) to attend. We began meeting in person with our church family again during this time. I do the weekly bulletin, which I continued to do and distribute via email through “the year of living dangerously”.
MCAC hosted an outdoor concert featuring the Macon County High Band. I just help with promotion and getting folks paid. There will be another concert in July with the US Army Band. Art in the Park program for our grade school children is planned for later in June. Again, promotion and paying for supplies for the kids art projects is my task. I also have been a volunteer clerk at MCAC’s Gallery 102 and Vision 2020’s Step Back in Time Shop. I AM CRAZY!
My apologies for missing my April installment of This Is My Story; This is My Song. Like I said, it’s been CRAZY around here of late. My concern doing times like these is that I will not do a very good job as I flip between one group’s meetings and tasks and attendance at events to the other non-profit group. I am, like my Dad, in that when I sign on for a job I do to my best. I finish it. I have to set priorities and dedicate a day or morning (at least) to one organization and try not be distracted by emails and vibrating phones dealing with some other matter. I’ll be glad when June 5th is passed and the Folk Medicine Festival is remembered fondly and successfully. That will be one less meeting a month.
Thank you for letting me vent some of the stress of “biting off more than I can chew”. I hope I don’t come off as whining. Volunteering is good for me. It helps me remember: “it’s not all about me!” I am lifted up when I lift others. I see a need to volunteer and try to do the best I can to lift my community, add to their positive growth and honor Big Daddy and my God.
Check out www.maconcountyartscouncil.com and www.vision2020inc.com if you are looking for a community non-profit organization that can surely benefit from your skills, ideas and physical prowess.
“Onward and upward! To Narnia and the North!” – C.S. Lewis, Chronicles of Narnia #5
