A meeting kind of day at work. STC “Persona” meeting, installation for Diane M., and ITIM new release content. It amazes me sometimes how such brilliantly technical people can have no people skills.
Stopped by home to have dinner. Left at 5:30. Stopped by Blockbuster to return the two Mame movies. Picked Mason up for the SeminarWorks volunteer meeting at 6:20. Arrived at the church at about 7:40. Jan was there, and we set up the meeting outside the office, so she could participate.
We started actually just before 7:00 as Mason asked the question, “Who do we think the audience of this seminar is going to be?” I left Tim answer, and he talked about what he does, and then a little bit about the foster parenting process, in general, in North Carolina. Everyone was totally surprised that being gay is not an issue in foster child placement, at least in Wake County.
At about 7:15, I stopped the conversation about foster parenting in the guise of “let’s not go through the whole seminar here. Though it’s interesting, we need to get the seminar planned now.” The meeting started with me asking each volunteer tell tell us three things:
- Your name.
- How you heard about TCW and/or SeminarWorks.
- Imagine now that your volunteer stint is over. The seminar has been put on, and we’re done. Now, tell me what it’s going to feel like to you to have had a successful or rewarding stint as a volunteer with TCW.
My response to the last item was that I’m going to feel like this volunteer activity for me was a success if each of you have had a successful volunteer stint.
I discussed each person’s assignment, and distributed “starting material” to each of them for each of their tasks. I think we’re off to a good start. At the end, Mason said, “Well, I’d just like to take a minute to thank John for having this so organized!” That was nice to hear.
I drove Mason home and heard horrible things about his life as a dad eventually coming out and the devastation in his life as a result of it. Very sad.
Got to dancing at about 8:15, and hardly anyone was there yet. After a while, the regulars were pretty much there, and some new faces, too. I made an effort to make the new folks feel welcome.
I suggested a dance (partner dance to a cha-cha beat) to Carl to teach, and showed it to him. He liked it, and decided to teach it, so that was cool. Danced a lot with Adam, and we’re really doing much better dancing together, so that’s cool.
In the middle of one dance, I looked up over the fan and pool table and there was Robert standing against the wall! What a wonderful surprise! I had packed my bag with the possibility of an over-night stay in Chapel Hill, as I was going to go knock on his door at 11:30 at night, after dancing.
He spent some time talking with Darren, who had almost shaved his head, and had shaved his goatee. At one point the had their phones on together. Perhaps they swapped numbers. If anything happens, I hope I hear all about it! 🙂
We left together at 11:30, and Robert spent the night. MMMMMMMMMMMMMMing into the wee hours of the morning. Oh yeah, that was after a slight eating binge. 🙁