Gala

Yesterday was the 20th anniversary of the Minnesota Master Naturalist program. The gala was held at the Silverwood Nature center in New Brighton. I served on the planning committee. After a half dozen zoom meetings we pulled it together. Everything went well. I arrived at 11 a.m. to help set up. I helped put black tablecloths on 26 round tables. Then I was assigned the making of the name tags. I put a couple hundred name tags together which took 90 minutes. Then I had to put the dinner underneath the name tags. The name tags were not in alphabetical order. The name tags were separated by table. The printed spread sheets were not in alphabetical order either. Finding whether someone wanted prime rib, salmon, or portabella was taking forever. I really wished for a spreadsheet with a search function. Finally one of the Extension staff brought me the spreadsheet and progress was made. Another woman came to help. After working on this for 4.5 hours the name tags were done. The event started at 5 p.m. Dinner was at 7. The program started at 8. At 9 our guest speaker went up to the podium. His name is Kevin Kling. He is a famous Minnesotan known for his books, his plays and his comedy. He gave a great speech. After that was the fashion show. When I arrived at the event I had no idea that I volunteered to be the speaker of the fashion show. I was told to speak with flair. Several of the outfits were fashioned from green polyester tablecloths that were given to each chapter in the beginning. This was prior to the loon being ruled inadmissable as a program logo. There are still some hard feelings about that. A dress was made from one and a pantsuit from another. I did my best to read the script with flair. There was more laughter from the fashion show than anything else this evening. When I was done and helping to clean up, Kevin Kling, that's right, the great Kevin Kling, gave me a compliment on my performance. Be still my heart!

 

Minnesota Master Naturalist 20th Anniversary Quilt.