What do you do? Are you busy? Can we schedule a conference call?
These days the good old calendar goes everywhere with us, sometimes in the form of the old fashioned Day-Timer but more and more in the form of iPhone, Blackberry, iPad, or in my case a Windows Phone.
We no longer answer or send letters by snail mail. Answers are now expected within minutes, hours or in the very least days. No wait time. Let’s talk.
While it does have advantages, it also has disadvantages. There really is never any down time unless you create it and decide to check out. May was a pretty typical month for me. It went as follows:
May 1 – I fly to Vancouver for the RCMP committee meeting; back the same day.
May 2 – I meet Graham Watt to talk about the Kettle River steering committee. That night I attend an environmental services meeting and I am fortunate because it is in Grand Forks.
May 3 – Wow, our twin granddaughters are 19. At 7 a.m. the Grand Forks Rotary Club, then I meet with the Christina Lake Stewardship in the morning and the Kettle River stakeholders meeting in the evening.
May 4 – I try to get groceries; apparently the cupboard is bare. I grab a little time on Saturday and Sunday for family and gardening while answering email and phone calls.
The morning of May 7 I travel to Trail to meet with the Regional District of Kootenay Boundary CAO and the chair of the board and back for a meeting at my house with the some of the Boundary folks.
The morning of May 8 sees a conference call for the Rural BC Project and an APC (advisory planning committee) meeting that night.
May 9 is a policy executive and personnel meeting, which I chair then an hour to get to Trail for a protective services meeting.
May 10 – Normally Rotary at 7 a.m. but today finds us in Kelowna for an eye appointment and Mother’s Day with my 92-year-old mother.
May 14 – I am off to Vancouver for a Rural BC think tank meeting on how funding groups could work together to maximize dollars for Rural BC granting to help economic development in rural areas. Back the next day.
May 16 finds me at a park and rec meeting at 8 a.m. and a Christina Lake school public meeting that evening.
May 18 is the rotary meeting at 7 a.m., then we get to have dinner with some special friends to celebrate their anniversary – this is relaxing. In between, I answer emails, some of which are very important, or try to schedule another conference call for SIBAC (Southern Interior Beetle Action Coalition) and two others waiting in the wings.
As I look at the calendar now I am hoping I might get a couple days to catch up with some folks I would like to meet with and spend a couple hours in my garden.
Victoria Day finds me having a meeting at my house at 1:30 p.m. The next day (May 22) I stop down and have tea with the quilters.
May 23 is an early morning conference call and a hospital meeting in the evening. We try to take off camping for a couple days and I drive back for May 26, Lake Clean Up Day, then again for the RDKB board meeting on May 29.
June will be much the same but a little busier and July is looking even more hectic. Do I have to be this involved? It is my belief that to fairly represent Christina Lake, I need to keep informed – have those who make provincial and federal decisions know who I am – and attend committee meetings that may be instrumental in the work I do for Christina Lake.
I answer my phone 24/7. I happen to think that is a big part of my job. Do I still like being the director for Christina Lake? Yes I do. I am, however, fortunate to have a husband who helps out at home and two dogs who still love me. Have a good summer everyone.
– Grace McGregor is Area C director for the RDKB