It was a busy week getting ready for the biggest event of the year at MCBA, the 2024 Officers and Directors Installation dinner and Legal Education Scholarship fundraiser. It was a sit down dinner for 140 people with multiple presentations from VIPs such as our local Assemblymember, the outgoing and incoming Presidents, the scholarship committee chairs and a recently retired judge who swore the board in and also led the live auction fundraiser. As it is with coordinating any kind of large event, no matter how prepared you are, something always pop up at the end. It didn’t help that the event manager at the venue had completely the wrong personality for that job. Between myself, the MCBA event and membership manager and the incoming executive director, we have literally organized hundreds of events at many different kinds of venues, and we all agreed that the event manager at the venue was the worst person any of us had ever worked with. She was rude, controlling, condescending, and very inflexible. I ended up losing my temper with her after doing the AV walk-through two days before the event which led her to get upset, march out of the room and slam her office door in my face. Since we couldn’t cancel the event or go to another venue so we had to deal with her very icy reception during the entire program. Needless to say, the organization will never go back to that venue and I am composing a letter to go to her boss. She had mentioned that she used to be the office manager at the venue, it seems like she does better working with computers than with people.
But luckily none of that affected the event itself. The energy in the room was fantastic, there was lots of laughter and hugs, everyone seemed to be very happy catching up with friends. Besides organizing the event, finding sponsors, creating the PowerPoint presentation, sponsor thank you flyers and programs I was also the MC! My MC job consisted mainly of introducing the speakers (as well as asking the attendees to stop talking!) and recognizing the various groups who were in attendance- judges, elected officials, other leaders in the local legal community, past presidents and both event and year round sponsors. Needless to say, I was a bit worn out after all of those introductions. It was a fun evening, and having been part of the MCBA for three months now and attending a few in person events, I recognized more faces and felt a bit more part of the group. Scott, the 2024 President, acknowledged and thanked me in his speech and gave me a gorgeous bouquet of flowers. That was very sweet. After introducing the legal education scholarship recipients, it was time to raise funds for the next years scholarship. The chairs talked about their hope that they could eventually raise enough funds to move from offering individual scholarships of $2500-$5000 a year to fully funding a fellowship at a local nonprofit. This vision helped encourage some larger donations and in the end we managed to raise over $30,000, almost double what was raised last year! That brought a very positive ending to a wonderful evening.
Scott told me that many people came up to him and said it was the most enjoyable installation event they had been to in many years. I’m so happy to have been part of making the start of his year such a positive event, from the successful board retreat to the presentation with Attorney General Bonta last week to the Installation and fundraiser event. Four months ago Scott was very concerned about what his year was going to be like when the previous Executive Director announced that she was going to be leaving in November. I’m so glad that it worked out for me to be able to step in and assist them during this time of transition. I’ve gained so much from this time, not just financially, but also in learning new skills, gaining confidence in my abilities, and opening up the idea of a totally different way of working by taking on interim work, and giving myself time off in between to explore and work on other projects. I’ve learned I can take in a lot of information quickly and use that to create practical actions and strategies. That I can research and figure out how to get things accomplished with very little initial information. I’m also learning how to train somebody who doesn’t have the same confidence in herself that I have. It’s made me realize how much I have learned over the years from the different jobs I’ve held, and in particular this time I’ve had off, challenging myself in new ways. I have gained a lot of confidence in my abilities and more importantly, I am less worried about making mistakes, and worrying that people will think less of me. They might think less of me, but I really don’t care because I can put it into better perspective. So I am also learning how to adjust my expectations.
