The Victoria Guild Board is the women's volunteer group of about forty women whose primary purpose is to raise funds for the hospital. In 1996 I started volunteering at the hospital information desk. It wasn't long thereafter that these very nice women stopped at the desk and asked if I would like to be nominated to serve on the Victory Guild Board. I was hesitant to do so because I was already doing quite a bit of tutoring for the literacy council, and Don and I wanted to be free to take vacations and go to the lake.
Well, these lovely ladies assured me that I could do as little or as much as I wanted, and that the board didn't require much time or work. HA! Let me tell you right now what I have learned in retirement. Whenever anyone asks you to join a group, do a volunteer job, or take an office, they always say that it doesn't requre much time or work. This is NEVER EVER true! Now, just remember this, and that I told you so! The only time this is true, is if I am begging you to take a job or office. Then (fingers crossed behind my back) it is true.
These guild ladies are the most dedicated, hard-working ladies I have ever seen. They give hours, and hours, and more hours to fulfill the needs of the hospital. I swear that some of them sleep there. The main responsibilities of the board are to manage the hospital gift shop, and to hold the BIG once a year fund raiser, THE CHRISTMAS CORNER SALE. What a shock that first year was. I have never in my life been as tired as I was the weekend of that sale.
After baking my required $30.00 worth of baked goods for the bakery corner, I worked on Wednesday and Thursday setting up the sale. Then on Friday the sale begins at 6AM. I didn't know that anyone in the world got up at 5 AM. The sale lasted until 4 or 5PM. Oh, but that's not all. Then you tore down the booths, put everything away, and cleaned the part of the cafeteria where the sale is held. I was dead on my feet. But these chipper ladies twenty years my senior were still going strong. Why they all planned to go to the Knights of Columbus fish fry after they left there. I went home, soaked in the tub, and didn't go out of the house for two days.
Besides this sale, each member was required to serve on two board committees like blood draw or membership, etc. And you had to work two monthly shifts in the gift shop. And you had to serve on two gift shop committees. Now I must admit that even though I could have done without selling in the gift shop , I did like the gift shop committees on which I served. I was on
one committee where we changed a gift shop display case out in the hospital. It was fun to plan and pick out pretty merchandise, and try to display it artfully.
But the second gift shop committee was my favorite. The hospital owned and offered the use of a residence that was a block away from the hospital. The board held meetings there, used it for storage and pricing of gift shop and Christmas corner merchandise. But upstairs was the
best part. The ladies on the board created all the silk arrangements and wreaths that were sold in the gift shop and at the sale. And I got to work on that committee. We all sometimes worked together in the workshop, but we were also allowed a key so we could go in and work when we had time. I loved to go on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon, all by myself. I would turn on the radio, listen to music, and just have fun creating. I really wasn't that good. I had a lot to learn.
And I always feared that my creations would linger like poor orphans in the gift shop, unsold, then marked down, then finally a disgrace at the yearly garage sale. I would try to put one of mine in the display case that I arranged. (I'm so embarrassed.) Why, many times I bought my arrangements in the gift shop so they wouldn't linger there any longer (even more embarrassed).
Today when I went to the Guild Garage Sale, it brought back all these memories. The sale was held in the Guild House Garage. Members I had served with and loved were there: Sister Carmencita and Nellie, both much my senior and still working. I longed to go upstairs, turn on the hot glue guns, throw some clippings on the floor, smell the eucalyptus, and admire all the rainbow of silk flower colors, and the bolts of ribbon. Instead I found one of those orphan flower arrangements, really quite lovely, I thought. It was a spray for the door done in blues and greens. It would have cost $80.00 in a flower shop. There it was for $5.00. It now hangs on our front door, and, must say it looks really smashing. My prayer is that its creator didn't see it
in the garage sale.
No comments:
Post a Comment