NMP

Then you really feel yourself at liberty to tell me that my elder brother lives? That I may charge him with his cruel deceit, and transfer to his shoulders the hideous thraldom under which I have laboured for so many years! Free? free at last! Free to live a blameless life, and to die beloved and regretted by all who knew me!

(Despard, Ruddigore, W.S. Gilbert)

The Stage had its annual meeting tonight which includes elections for the Board of Directors. Half our board is up for re-election every year and this year finished my term.

Oddly enough, I have never actually been elected to the Board. I've run a couple of times, but never got enough votes. (Which, frankly, can only reflect well on our voting membership.) The Chair, however, can appoint two board members for one-year terms and the outgoing Chair would just appoint me. I've made sure that there is nothing that I do for the Stage that requires me to be a board member so that I won't have to give up any of the jobs that I actually enjoy when my time is up.

So we had the meeting and the elections and, well, if you don't run, you can walk away. I bequeathed my seat across the table from Don to Bridget - and until you've sat across from Don at a meeting and watched him squirm and writhe at the nonsense that every board is heir to, you just don't know how valuable a bequest that was - made light chit chat, scarfed a couple of brownies (because until my stupid diagnosis is confirmed, I can), thanked the current and past Chairs for the opportunity to serve the Stage, and headed out. I didn't actually say "Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, I'm free at last!" but I didn't not think it either.

There were lots of joking comments about how I wasn't getting off that easy, that they would just reappoint me, but they have well-qualified, bright, energetic, new blood candidates for that. So now I don't have to worry about getting board member tunnel vision. And if there's a problem, well, it's NMP: Not My Problem.