Supporters’ Dinner: The Sequel
Monday, 27 October, 2003
Thank you to everyone who sent me supportive messages over the weekend. So how did it go? Well ...
On Friday morning I had breakfast with Liz. We ate crumpets and chatted for far too long (like how to do the ECU/IBM diagram for the staff slideshow) so that we only had 20 minutes in which to read the Bible and pray. I was supposed to interview her but I said I'd do that later. She had to leave for high school Scripture, promising to help me photocopy brochures later that day, and I walked home.
I had rung Phillip to tell him not to come in until 12:30 to print brochures because that's when I thought we'd be in at Uni since Ben was going to the doctor that morning. But he came home earlier than I thought, bearing Pete, and they wanted to go so I printed out the master brochure, packed up and left.
I felt a bit useless in the Chaplaincy, knowing that there were all these things I could be doing but I couldn't do them because I needed Ben's computer or I needed someone to help me with the Clubs and Societies photocpier so I sat and planned out the staff slideshow on paper, thinking through what sort of photos I'd need on each slide. This actually saved me a lot of time in the long-run. Ben was feeling crazy that morning and he decided that what the Chaplaincy really needed was a Complaint Box. He decideded to make one and added the first two complaints:
“My neck is so sore!”
and
“Andrew is not here while my neck is so sore.”
(Andrew studied Physiotherapy before starting MTS.)
Phillip and Liz turned up while Miriam and I were eating lunch (Irwan had brought Miriam lunch—leftovers from the chilli night on Wednesday [it included chilli duck]). But first they had to wrap giving boxes in bright shiny paper so that took them a fair while. And then they had to eat their own lunches. I passed the time by going through my work mail and seaching the net for extra pictures I needed for the staff slideshow.
Phillip went down and copied the quizes because we only needed a couple dozen of them and they just required white paper. I was getting jittery about the whole thing and Liz was still eating her lunch and was deep in conversation with Miriam which I didn't want to interrupt. Everyone else had left the Chaplaincy and I was sick of using the Internet.
But finally Liz was ready and we went down to the Clubs and Societies photocopier and started doing the big copy run. It was less painful than I thought it would be; we watched the copier do 200 copies of the first side of the first page, then 200 copies of the second side of the first page, etc. While we were standing around, Andy (ex-student) came up to say hi; he was visiting for the day. We also had a good conversation with the guy who does the IT for Clubs and Societies. Liz is very good at engaging strangers in conversation; it's a skill I wish I could learn but I don't think I'm very imaginative when it comes to making conversation. Hannah and Ben also came by while we were photocopying. Ben wanted to know if I wanted a piece of Big Cookie and then he went off and bought one. He helped us fold and we finally got the whole lot done!
But I still had to interview Liz for The Page and Ben had to interview Andrew. We finally got down to business. Ben used the tape recorder and I used pen and paper, trying to put into practice the principles that William Zinser had talked about in his book, On Writing Well. I think my technique worked (more or less) and I found out all sorts of stuff I hadn't known before about Liz. It was a very encouraging interview.
(As Andrew and Liz are leaving for Bible college next year, I thought it would be good to do an article on them for Week 13's edition of The Page, the last one for the year. Hence the interviews.)
Ben and I finally came home and I started work on the staff slideshow. I had to stop when the So-'n-So's (Sorrensons—Pete and Erica) showed up for dinner. Because Erica has diet issues, she brought our dinner for us. This suited us very well because it saved me having to cook and it saved Erica having to wash up. We spent ages chatting and I really enjoyed it because it is rare for us to be in the company of both Sorensons at once. They left at about 11. I did a bit of work on the staff slideshow before Ben made me go to bed.
On Saturday I got up fairly early to do the laundry and the ironing, clean the house, work on the slideshow, burn CDs and, of course, do my quiet time. I ordered Ben to vacuum the living room floor as soon as he got up because Haydn and Elsie were staying over. They rang at about 3 to say that they were lost. I gave them directions, then went out to find them, knowing they'd have trouble finding the place (why do we always live in places which people have difficulty finding???) Elsie brought me a large package of green tea with brown rice (very yummy!!!) and Haydn had the entire Saturday paper under his arm. He hadn't had lunch so I gave him a meat pie. The rain came bucketing down and I started getting cancellations for the dinner. A hail storm in Sydney was no doubt breaking forth (great timing!)
At 5 we left to go the function centre to prepare for the dinner. Simon was stressing because Richard wanted the screens and projectors spaced farther apart than he had cable. This meant we needed a second laptop. I went home and got mine but it didn't have a VGA port. So, 10 minutes before the dinner began, Simon drove off to Pirie's place to borrow his laptop.
I had burned two CDs of everything and I had tested them both on my machine. For some reason, a box of text was missing from one particular slide on the quiz slideshow. But it was there when I tested it on Richard's (weird). Unfortunately, Richard didn't have any of the fonts I used for the shows and so the text was all wrong. (I don't understand that; I told PowerPoint to embed the fonts!) So I spent about fifteen minutes before the dinner fixing up the slideshow on Richard's computer so that it would display properly.
Simon came back with Pirie's laptop and then couldn't get the second projector to display the stuff on the screen. We gave up and decided to run with one, much to my disappointed resignation.
Lots of people started to arrive. It was good to see old friends, though I must have seemed awfully preoccupied when I greeted them. It was amazing that so many people came in the end; the room was packed. Rick started off the proceedings and we did the staff interviews with Tim driving the slideshow. Richard interviewed me about TEAM and Ben about staff meetings, though I think Ben's amusing responses unsettled Richard (Ben has a knack for doing that). Rick sent off everyone table by table to get main course (which was absolutely delicious and I wish I could had more of that teriyaki salmon!) I ran the photo slideshow during dinner and Ben had to keep playing with the mouse on Richard's laptop so it wouldn't keep going to sleep. After dinner, Mike Raiter gave his address which was excellent as always (I am really looking forward to hearing him speak at National Training Event) and we interviewed some students. I tried to get some photos but they turned out very badly because I didn't want to use the flash (too intrusive). Two of the students sang an item by Ruth Buchanan and then we had dessert.
My parents and Ben's family had to leave straight after dessert but they all really enjoyed the evening. I spent ages catching up and talking to people afterwards which was a lot of fun but must have tested the patience of our guests who were tired and of my Ben who has been perpetually tired for a week. Finally, we had finished packing up and it was time to go home. I must say that, in the end, everything went very well and a lot of people were encouraged by the work that we're doing down here.
I am also hoping to recycle one of the slideshows for our end of year dinner!
Blinks:
A way of funding writing in the future: pitch and idea and get people to support it.
Place where you can hire play equipment for parties, etc.
How to recalibrate the home button on your iPhone.
Unsolicited manuscripts accepted by Pan Macmillan with certain conditions.
Thought Balloon is a group blog in which the writers tackle a new theme every week? month? with one-page scripts. This URL is for their Phonogram ones.
How to sew a zipper on a knitted garment.
Issues organised by tale.
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