I’m not quite sure how it happened; I have found myself on the committee. Think of the Calendar Girls movie and you might be on the right lines. Not quite jam and Jerusalem but plenty of grey hair, eccentric characters and you might be getting close.
I can admit it now, I was slightly off guard when I was asked. It was said to simply be an “extra bum on a seat”. Rachel was also asked but managed to neatly side step it. Arguments were “you’re just the kind of person we need” followed by “you live so close to the village hall, you won’t need to drive there”.
My name got put forward to the AGM. Astonishingly someone signed a sheet of paper to say they were proposing me, followed by another seconding that and I don’t even knew who they were. Something similar was happening to some other recruits too and I wondered if they were feeling like me.
A unanimous show of hands and we were all voted in. I’m sure most of the members, over a hundred, had no idea who I was or whether I’d be any good or not. As if to add to my increasing levels of unease, people came up to me and congratulated me.
The committee is full of characters. The “we’ve always done it this way” mindset is there, the cautious treasurer, the ultra compliant members and so on. Then there is the chair, complete with her bright red dyed hair, which I happened to think was a welcome change from the stereotypical blue rinse. And then there is me. I’m not sure they quite know what to make of me yet.
The first committee meeting was an interesting one. The chairwoman didn’t show up and so someone else offered to keep order. And order was certainly kept, each being asked to put our hand in the air if we wanted to speak. You can imagine, I was very compliant with this, but only for the first few minutes.
The second committee meeting was more relaxed and chaired by the chair, complete with red hair which had now become rather spiky. I like her, although it’s clear it’s as new to her as it is to me, so I thought a supportive stance is best.
By the time we got to the third meeting, it was clear that some positions remained unfilled and I could tell I was heading for a few glares aimed at me. There was, or so I learned, no capacity for being a mere bum on a seat and I felt I ought to volunteer for something, rather than being lumbered with the dregs of committee life with the job nobody else wanted to do. I volunteered to be the vice chair, on the understanding it wouldn’t mean I automatically became the chair at some point. My reasoning being that I could chair a meeting and surely that would be it, wouldn’t it? I then learned I might have to “chair” the large open meetings, with over a hundred attending. Gulp.
In an odd way, it is like work for retired folk. We have our purpose, we have our roles and we meet to progress through the agenda; don’t get me started on agendas – not just those on neat A4 sheets of paper….. agendas within agendas!!!! But that’s for another time.