June 2, 2005
Dear Everyone:
I spent most of last Saturday designing, printing and mailing the ballots to elect the 2005-2006 Board of Directors for the Mt Diablo chapter of ARMA. (You should know by now that it stands for Association of Records Managers and Administrators.) I had volunteered to be the Nominations “committee”, since I had every intention of strong-arming two of my co-workers into “volunteering” to serve on the Board next year.
I was aided and abetted by our supervisor who, during a performance management session, stated that, “It’s not enough to just belong to ARMA. You must participate as well.” I was pretty sure he’d said the same thing to the others in our group. I might have tried to pull in two more, but they live so far away that it wouldn’t be fair to expect them to stay late for “ARMA night” each month.
As it is, of the four top positions on the Board, President, Vice President, Secretary, and Treasurer, only one is not a Company employee. That’s right, I will still be on the Board, just not as Treasurer. I’ll be Vice President and our current Secretary (who works for UC, Berkeley) will move up to President. Since the new Treasurer will be working in the next cubicle over from me at the office, she can come to me if she runs into any problems. This is called nurturing.
As for the ballots, it’s so easy now with all the computer specialized stationery available. I selected a package of cards with matching envelopes. You just select the template from the computer, type in the text, add any graphics you want and print them out, in color no less. After printing, the cards split apart at the center and you have two cards ready for the envelopes.
I used a spreadsheet with the names, addresses, etc., to generate mailing labels for the envelopes going out. And I set up a couple of sheets of mailing labels with my address for the return envelopes. It was fairly time-consuming (I spent three hours watching a made-for-TV movie very loosely based on the Greco-Roman myths about Hercules) but apart from that, it was a snap.
Speaking of snaps, “Jeannie” came down on Sunday to help me erect the smaller imitation “instant shade” for my patio. She started by moving everything away from the wall and fence so they wouldn’t be in our way. Unfortunately, in doing so, she blocked the gate. So we moved a few things, opened the gate and moved mostly everything out onto the sidewalk.
With the patio relatively unencumbered, it didn’t take long to pull the frame apart as much as we could. Then “Jeannie” got underneath and pushed the center piece up into position. With the cover Velcro-ed into place, we pulled the telescoping legs out until they snapped into the lowest position. Then we moved everything back onto the patio.
“Jeannie” declared victory and left.
Monday, thankfully, was a holiday. When I woke up, the first thought I had was, “In the name heaven, what did you do to yourself? Did you get up in the middle of the night and fling yourself down the stairs?” I hurt all over. It hurt to lift my head, my arms. Only when I made my way downstairs and saw the big, red shade over the patio did I realize that all that pushing and pulling had come at a price. On the plus side, by Tuesday I was much better.
As for the big, red shade. It sure is red. When the sun came around the house Monday morning to shine on the new shade, it reflected back on the house, turning it pink. It turns the whole neighborhood pink. I’m giving some thought to making a cover in a less robust color to just go over the existing cover.
Also, I discovered that I can, by myself, move the telescoping legs up or down a notch, one leg at a time. At first, it was just tall enough to clear my head (5’ 2”). At the second notch, a taller person can get through. It can even go a bit higher, which might help shade the side of the house a little more. That was the original purpose of getting the shade in the first place.
So maybe this weekend I’ll stop by the fabric store and see what they have in a nice forest green. Or maybe the neighborhood will get used to being “in the pink”.
Love, as always,
Pete
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