Day 69 (March 10, 2010): Strathcona Rail Community Garden 1st Annual General Meeting

Tonight we attended the first ever “Strathcona Rail Community Garden Annual General Meeting”. I am the chair of the group so I had to do a report from the chair on our 2009 season. I was fine with the report because I had prepared it ahead of time. However, throughout the day today my back started to get stiff and then the stiffness turned into pain. By the time our meeting was to start I could hardly walk. It really sucked because I was trying to concentrate on the task at hand: Chairing the meeting. I am used to standing in front of people and speaking, because of my job, however, I was still a bit nervous about this meeting. We had “annual elections” on the agenda and I didn’t want to screw things up or forget the proper procedure and look like an idiot. Honestly, I haven’t used proper meeting protocol (making a motion, seconding, abstaining, motion carried etc.) since high school. I am involved in some other meetings and groups through my work but we don’t use those formal procedures.  I was also distracted by my back pain. Despite my nerves and pain, things went quite well. I made a couple of small foibles but our group of gardeners is very understanding and patient so it wasn’t a big deal. I got re-elected as the chair of the group. Even though there were no other nominations for my position, it is still nice that I got re-elected. It validates that I did a good job as the chair for the 2009 season.