Two Big Clinic Meetings Today

This film has been getting rave reviews. I look forward to seeing it.

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Wednesday was slow and gentle. Our morning walk was excellent because it was so sunny and mild. I read, and had a second walk with Sheba in the afternoon, and did very little clinic work in the day. In the evening, I watched a really weird. Here’s a description from the NYT: “an exuberant swirl of genre anarchy [that defies] the laws of probability, plausibility and coherence. This movie’s plot is as full of twists and kinks as the pot of noodles that appears in an early scene. Spoiling it would be impossible. Summarizing it would take forever.” I loved it!!!

After seeing the film, I did a lot of clinic work so that I am prepared for today’s two meetings. Nancy has told me that the contract includes training me to maintain the campaign social media presence on three platforms. In total, there are to be about 10 posts per week across the three platforms. That’s 10 units of communication—posts are short—that must get approval before release. And it’s that approval part that slows things down. I will have balls in the air. Many balls in the air, and a lot more from me in terms of volunteer time.

I’m meeting with Carol today on Zoom to discuss how we will function as a team. I work pretty much full-on part time for two clients—the Foundation and the campaign—handling communication tasks. I am part of the Communications/Community Relations/Fundraising Committee. Carol functions effectively largely as a consultant. She’s our most knowledgeable board member about social medial and our community. She’s the executive director of our local arts council. And Don is our fundraising advisor.

He's a busy man and been very ill of late, so we rarely see Don. But we’re not doing a fundraising campaign yet, so he’s been part of decisions via Zoom and email with Dyan. Dyan led us; I supported her by think tanking strategies with her and executing her decision. And now she’s gone. She’s president now. Carol, I hope will be a partner to me. 

We have to redesign our website and I already have a huge job. I can’t take on too much more. I need her to proof all I do and share responsibility for department planning. That’s my hope. I’m sure she’ll, partner with me on the planning for the website re-design. Today’s discussion will be a significant one. We have to choose a chairman and that’s more work if it’s me. There’s a lot of reporting to the board.

This afternoon, I have a big ad session with Nancy. I’ve a busy clinic day today. But thanks to all the planning of the past many months that I’ve been working with them, we’ve begun operations ‘under a new management,’ at full speed. We’ve issued our first newsletter, soon we’ll have a new website and a tool, the newsletter, to provoke visits to it, and we’ve launches a pretty significant social media presence. The first newsletter and our new social media initiative both began this month. There was no communications department until I came on board. The online campaign was begun earlier but was a bust. Nancy and I reinvented it and now we have hired the consultant.

And I’m so proud to be able to say that. We’ve done a lot and I volunteered because the clinic never told me anything about our two doctors leaving—one of them mine. They didn’t tell me that they hired locums anything at all. That’s now changed.

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The state of Pinecone Park is absolutely appalling. The snow decimated the ferns and there’s forest dropping, like a thick blanket of death, everywhere. I’ll have to find my Zen come Spring in order to bring order and calmness and beauty back to my tiny park. The extreme cold may have killed my pump in the fountain. I’ll know soon, when I test it.