Contingency Planning

My food group is having a picnic in a couple of weeks and I have been tasked with helping to coordinate the food. Basically, I need to keep track of who is bringing what, determine which categories of food are lacking representation and then assign people to bring things in the aforementioned categories. Sound like fun? To me – YES!

I adore planning things. And to a rather fanatical extent. Of late, I typically only get to exercise these skills when entertaining guests. For example, dinner parties. The more complex the better. Determining the menu, décor, seating and writing out a timetable (in 10-minute increments) are almost as much fun as the cooking itself. I’ve even been known to create Gantt charts to help with the scheduling. To choreograph the cooking and serving so it all runs smoothly and flawlessly is a thing of true beauty and about as close to true artistry as I can manage.

I must have inherited this trait from my mother (certainly not from my father – he expected God to provide, which did work out since God provided him with my mother). When I showed horses, way back when in a former life, my mother would always pack my tack trunk with all sorts of stuff. And it was all inventoried on a checklist to ensure that nothing was left behind at the barn.

If a strap broke, we had a heavy-duty leather sewing kit (it belonged to her father, a shoemaker), extra leather straps and a leather punch. Nail polish remover to take care of spilled spots of hoof polish? Check. Extra boots, hats, gloves (which have a penchant for falling irretrievably into porta-potties), bits, cinches and reins. Yarn for braiding people’s and horses’ hair? Sure, which color would you prefer – brown, black, navy or beige? Sunscreen, bug repellant, hair spray (which, in a pinch, can also remove hoof polish), and pepto bismal. Indelible black marker and duct tape? Check, check. If it was not in the trunk, the horse trailer or the truck, it was something that was simply not needed, under any circumstance, at a horse show. My mother could put any boy scout to shame.

And she taught me well. By fourteen years old, I was planning our county 4-H horse shows. Typically, around 75 total entrants and each one showed, on average, in 5 to 10 of the 20 to 30 classes offered. I did all the accounting (various flat fees, plus a fee per class), number assignment (one number per horse/rider combo), judges sheets (entrants, by number only, for each class and spaces for final ranking), announcer’s sheets (name of rider, name of horse, and their number for each class), and official result sheets (signed by the judges). Plus, press releases, mailing of entry forms, ordering trophies and ribbons and contracting with the judge(s). The one thing I did not do was check-in the morning of the show because I was busy getting my own horse ready for showing (which I did by myself since my mother did the check-in of entrants).

Getting a scientific degree and working as a chemist only encouraged my list-making, chart-making and data-recording tendencies. On our corrosion surveys of Pacific Navy bases, I was always the one taking notes on a clipboard (this was back in the stone-age before PDAs). My organizational skills have also come in handy as a military wife when I've been put in charge (because no one else wanted to do it) of disbursement, by means of scholarships and grants, of charitable money raised by the spouses' group.

I’ve often thought about getting into the event coordinating business, but not sure if I have the patience for the histrionics that are so commonly associated with “special” events. Perhaps, planning for “real” events would better – FEMA is obviously in need of some competent people and the Department of Homeland Security is always hiring. But for moment, I’ll be content with the little stuff, like picnics. And it is never too early to start planning for our biennial Holiday Open House Cookie-fest…