Am I Fired Up or What?
by Elizabeth CampbellI was soooo tired when I arrived at the Annual Reunion last Sunday. And it wasn’t the driving – mom got us there. No, I was tired because I write and write and try to keep this thing fresh every day… and I fail. I just don’t seem to be able to find the inspiration that allows me to say something about the RRS and TLSARL every day. And I write, and write and hardly anybody writes back. I know people are reading. They phone or email me and tell me <Hello! This is a BLOG! Comment! Give me a purpose in this function of mine!> (By the way… the <> means I didn’t write that out loud. So you can’t take offense, Okay? I DO appreciate the fact that you’re reading this! I’d just appreciate it more if you left a comment! 
) ) I was tired because I think that I’m trying to get people interested enough to comment but they aren’t, so, therefore, I am not engaging them in the way I want (Word of the week: engage). I was failing. And I was tired of the effort involved in failure.
When I got home Sunday night, I realised that that morning I hadn’t known what tired was. By the time I got home, I’d hit the wall. <SPLAT>
That was a good <SPLAT>, and I’m really sorry that none of you aside from my mother heard it.
I think that having the AGM at the Reunion made this Annual Reunion the best one I’ve been at in a very long time. It got people talking. Suddenly the people on the Executive, who have been running things for years and years on their own, for the most part, with little constructive feedback from anyone other than ourselves, got to tell people face-to-face what they were doing. Members got to SEE who we were. And members got a chance to ask us questions on the spot, throw in their comments and give us ideas and … wow. See why the authors of our constitution told us we must have an AGM every year, and the importance of having a significant number of members present for it?
I was talking to people for hours because now they knew who I was. I learned about an heirloom broach a lady at my table was wearing and asked her to get it photographed and write its history up for the newsletter. I really hope she does! Another lady told me about a little table with a drawer that the had and a chair. Ditto the Newsletter. (I’d be visiting these folks if I lived anywhere near them and writing it up myself!). I even learned about a washstand at Ross House that might have belonged to my grandmother at one time! And my head was spinning with family stories and attempts to determine whether the people I met were related and in what degree (I’m the TLSARL Genealogist).
I noticed other Executive members were similarly occupied whenever I had a moment to look around the room.
We’ll have a great deal to discuss at our next Executive Meeting later this fall….
And look at how many posts I’m getting out of this Reunion! And they’re all about things people were talking about and interested in….
Am I fired up, or what!
