TheBanyanTree: The Blah Time

[Margaret R. Kramer]

The holidays are over.  The cards, the presents, the decorations, and the
tree have all been put away.  It’s still gets dark early and stays dark
until later in the morning.  The nights have become bitterly cold in
Minnesota and the fireplace with flames flickering wildly has been our warm
gathering spot.

January usually meant the blah time.  The time when nothing is going on.
There is nothing to look forward to.  It has endless cold and bleak days.
We go to work and come home and do it all over again the next day.

But this January I’ve been hopping.  My women’s organization began a program
called Legacy which organizes four larger program events a year.  My local
organization was responsible for putting together an event in January
featuring women in politics.  I started organizing a women’s political panel
last September.  I began emailing prominent metro are female politicians for
their availability.  Based on their responses, I began to build a panel.

I thought we would be lucky to get four or five women to be on our panel,
but we ended up with 14 women, including nationally known advocate for
missing children, Patty Wetterling, our MN Secretary of State and Lieutenant
Governor, Ramsey and Hennepin county attorneys, and various state senators
and representatives, along with one female mayor.  By the way, it was a
bi-partisan panel.  How about that?

I had the panel and moderator set in November, so from Thanksgiving until
our event was spent marketing it to the public as well as to our own
organization.  As the event drew closer, I spent most evenings taking
reservations, developing a database, and fine tuning the details.  I’ve been
running as fast as I can since Christmas.

It paid off.  Our event was a success.  The politicians were fantastic as
well as our moderator.  The discussion focused on negative campaigning, fund
raising, and things they would not have happen again in their campaigns.
The evening was a cold one, but the event warmed everyone’s hearts.

It was the largest event I ever organized and I’m so pleased with how it
came out.  Things will begin to slow down now.  All I have to do this
weekend is to write thank you notes to our panelists, speakers, moderator,
and venue.

Now I’m welcoming the blah time.  I can focus on reading, music, and
scrapbooking again.  Believe or not, I enjoy the bitter cold of winter when
sound carries for miles and plastic cracks and squeaks.  I love our little
bit of snow crunching under my feet.  I love the frost patterns on our
windows.  I revel in the blah.

Margaret R. Kramer
margaretkramer at comcast.net

http://www.polarispublications.com
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http://www.bpwmn.org
Business and Professional Women of Minnesota

In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous.
--Aristotle