Thursday night madness blends into Friday
Last night I was my Ghost Train meeting for work. The Ghost Train is our city's halloween event. Our park hosts it and I'm in charge of it. I enjoy working with all the volunteers, they are a great bunch of people, which is fortunate, because I don't particularly like the event. Halloween doesn't excite me, don't like the holiday. Don't like the dark symbolism around it. But, I am in charge of it and the people I work with are great. For those reasons, I will always do the best job I can possibly do with it.
Last night's meeting was completely draining though. There is just so much going on this year that my head reels with info each time we meet. I spend ALL my time working on this project and am behind in so many other things because of it. I've collected the script and had that approved, had the plans and materials lists approved. Been shopping for all the supplies (still not done because they keep coming back with more wishes and we have to find the companies to supply some of the products we need, but they also have to be willing to take a PO # from a city that refuses to fill out credit aps.) That's fun. Oh yeah, I've been asking for materials lists for quite a while. Finally got them and they expect me to just waltz to the store and pick things up yesterday when I've got to put the larger items out to bid... a minimum of a 3 week process... but wait... the event is in 4 weeks. How do I pull that off? Not enough turn around time to do this!!!
In addition to that, I've got to do all the data entry to keep track of the volunteers for security ID purposes. I've had to input all the program info for tickets to go on sale in the city and online. I've done all the advertising for the program... ticket sales flyers, volunteer recruitment flyers, PSA's, News Releases, posters, plywood signs, etc. Got to handle all the filing for the GT budget, volunteers, assignments, inventory, donations, sponsorships, script updates, etc. Searched for sponsors for the program, and have to make sure all the promises made to sponsors are kept per the contracts. (Got 2 sponsors this year, yeay!) Got to supervise between 60-100 volunteers during workshops and the actual 6 night long event. Have to find incentive prizes for the volunteers. Have to feed them and the regular staff dinners on all 6 nights. (hotdogs, subs and pizza) Have to run interference between park staff/management and volunteers over creative differences.
Have to do all that and still write the budget for next year's programs, finish the reports from this summer's special event series, review and revise the summer camp curriculum, plan the entire 2005 program calendar for my park and city park and a few outlying programs at other area parks. Have to look for more contractors to run these programs because the job is becoming to large for me to teach as often as I've done in the past. Have to gather all the program info for this winter and spring, and summer camps to be included in the city's leisure guide magazine. Have to continue to create flyers and get classes into the local newspaper.
Have to do all these things and still be available for regular phone calls and customer service at the front desk of the campstore.
Aaaauuuuuuuughhhhhhh!!! I'm going out of my mind! I am so far behind, I don't think I'll ever die. Can't... there's too much to do. I'm beginning to think I'm immortal...nah, slightly delusional is more like it... No wonder my head is reeling!
Didn't leave me in a very good mood today to start with. Luckily, I wasn't bothered too much. Actually got some things done today and left in a much better mood. Enough of that though. Too much complaining.
I did get a little chance to sit and watch nature. I took a small break and watched as a mud daubber wasp came to a mud puddle and collect some mud for her nest. Got to talking about that with the maintenance guy at the park. Some of my volunteers had noticed what they thought were mud daubber nests on Ghost Train props a few weeks ago. They smashed the mud tubes, and out came scores of spiders. They were racking their brains to figure out what kind of spider builds nests like a mud daubber. I mentioned this to the maintenance guy (Mike). He said that they were indeed mud daubber nests. That the insect makes the nest, goes and finds a spider, stings the spider and places it in the nest (stunned but alive). She then lays an egg on there and seals it up. The larvae then feasts upon the spider until it breaks out of the mud tube. Mike said that they broke them open and let the spiders out before the eggs could hatch into larvae and eat the spiders. I'm going to have to check up on the biology of that... Can't believe that I have a degree in the subject, but knew nothing of this. Then again, I never studied entomolgy. Also, I'd never taken the time to watch wasps before. It's amazing what you can learn when you open your eyes and observe what is around you!
On that note, I'll go to bed now. This was a pretty long post for me! Congrats if you made it all the way through the complaining, to get to the nature story at the end. Good night for now.
Last night's meeting was completely draining though. There is just so much going on this year that my head reels with info each time we meet. I spend ALL my time working on this project and am behind in so many other things because of it. I've collected the script and had that approved, had the plans and materials lists approved. Been shopping for all the supplies (still not done because they keep coming back with more wishes and we have to find the companies to supply some of the products we need, but they also have to be willing to take a PO # from a city that refuses to fill out credit aps.) That's fun. Oh yeah, I've been asking for materials lists for quite a while. Finally got them and they expect me to just waltz to the store and pick things up yesterday when I've got to put the larger items out to bid... a minimum of a 3 week process... but wait... the event is in 4 weeks. How do I pull that off? Not enough turn around time to do this!!!
In addition to that, I've got to do all the data entry to keep track of the volunteers for security ID purposes. I've had to input all the program info for tickets to go on sale in the city and online. I've done all the advertising for the program... ticket sales flyers, volunteer recruitment flyers, PSA's, News Releases, posters, plywood signs, etc. Got to handle all the filing for the GT budget, volunteers, assignments, inventory, donations, sponsorships, script updates, etc. Searched for sponsors for the program, and have to make sure all the promises made to sponsors are kept per the contracts. (Got 2 sponsors this year, yeay!) Got to supervise between 60-100 volunteers during workshops and the actual 6 night long event. Have to find incentive prizes for the volunteers. Have to feed them and the regular staff dinners on all 6 nights. (hotdogs, subs and pizza) Have to run interference between park staff/management and volunteers over creative differences.
Have to do all that and still write the budget for next year's programs, finish the reports from this summer's special event series, review and revise the summer camp curriculum, plan the entire 2005 program calendar for my park and city park and a few outlying programs at other area parks. Have to look for more contractors to run these programs because the job is becoming to large for me to teach as often as I've done in the past. Have to gather all the program info for this winter and spring, and summer camps to be included in the city's leisure guide magazine. Have to continue to create flyers and get classes into the local newspaper.
Have to do all these things and still be available for regular phone calls and customer service at the front desk of the campstore.
Aaaauuuuuuuughhhhhhh!!! I'm going out of my mind! I am so far behind, I don't think I'll ever die. Can't... there's too much to do. I'm beginning to think I'm immortal...nah, slightly delusional is more like it... No wonder my head is reeling!
Didn't leave me in a very good mood today to start with. Luckily, I wasn't bothered too much. Actually got some things done today and left in a much better mood. Enough of that though. Too much complaining.
I did get a little chance to sit and watch nature. I took a small break and watched as a mud daubber wasp came to a mud puddle and collect some mud for her nest. Got to talking about that with the maintenance guy at the park. Some of my volunteers had noticed what they thought were mud daubber nests on Ghost Train props a few weeks ago. They smashed the mud tubes, and out came scores of spiders. They were racking their brains to figure out what kind of spider builds nests like a mud daubber. I mentioned this to the maintenance guy (Mike). He said that they were indeed mud daubber nests. That the insect makes the nest, goes and finds a spider, stings the spider and places it in the nest (stunned but alive). She then lays an egg on there and seals it up. The larvae then feasts upon the spider until it breaks out of the mud tube. Mike said that they broke them open and let the spiders out before the eggs could hatch into larvae and eat the spiders. I'm going to have to check up on the biology of that... Can't believe that I have a degree in the subject, but knew nothing of this. Then again, I never studied entomolgy. Also, I'd never taken the time to watch wasps before. It's amazing what you can learn when you open your eyes and observe what is around you!
On that note, I'll go to bed now. This was a pretty long post for me! Congrats if you made it all the way through the complaining, to get to the nature story at the end. Good night for now.
posted by VA girl at 10:03 PM
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