Day 5, Level 2: Newsletter, histories, beach bbq, hope & despair

Well, you'll be pleased to know I got to my meeting at 8am! We met at the Community Centre/Golf Club (about 2 minutes drive away). I would have walked but it might have rained! And I would have been late as it's about 8 minutes walk - and I wasn't organised until 2 minutes before start time!

We all moaned a bit as it was really 7am and we all agreed we hadn't adjusted yet. Or, more to the point, didn't want to. Daylight savings starts too early, whichever way you look at it!

What's more, the cafe in the centre wasn't due to open until 8.30am. 😕The centre itself was open as it's also the golf club, and there were obviously plenty of early birds out swinging their clubs. But the coffee machine and staff hadn't warmed up yet. To be fair, neither had I! 

We had to wait 30 minutes to get a wake-up tonic!

Our meeting was about the Summer/Xmas newsletter for Omaha Beach Community - which I've been editing since 2012. OMG it's impossible to believe I've been doing it for that long! It's an informative and enduring annual publication that I love being part of and I really do enjoy compiling it, writing, researching etc, with such a long connection to the place (nearly 50 years now!) 

We framed the issue up, talked about various articles etc. All good. In the early days when I came on board it was a little chaotic trying to get all the content in for editing and pulling it all together was a challenge. Now it's extremely streamlined. And also more professional with more indepth content and requires more finesse. All good. 

Back to base, onto my laptop and I cracked into other work as well as doing some initial research around the newsletter. 

It occurred to me this afternoon that this year has been all about addressing the history of organisations I'm involved with! Bizarre, as I was never much into history at school. Loved Geography, but history - nope. Now I absolutely love it and pursue it at some level just about every day - for work and pleasure!

Horseracing: I've researched and written a brief history about the NZ Thoroughbred Racehorse Owners Federation (est. 1937). I'm Vice-President and communications/website person and in the process of overhauling the website. Thanks Michael D, for twisting my arm to say yes to all this!! (Michael D is from the old Omaha days, peer of my parents, fellow racehorse lover, got me on board. Probably because he knows my passion for racing and knew I wouldn't say no, even though I'd sworn off committees for at least a decade!)  

For this history overview, I trawled through loads of back issues of journals, back to the 1970s, and even further, talking to people, reading info - and from this I have written a concise overview of how the organisation came to be, what it's added to a complex industry and the people involved in the crux of things. When I first came on board about 5 years ago, I had no idea about the organisation much less its history (which didn't exist in any written form). So I made it my mission to compile a history. Done! 

The new website is about to go live in the next week or so. It's been about four years in the making - a lot of patience and a fair amount of work! Now it's so close, it feels very satisfying. It could be a game-changer. I hope. 

The time is right for owners to shout from rooftops - without owners, the industry would fall over. This has never been fully appreciated. And even though I'm the tiniest of players in the ownership side of things, I work to advocate, lobby, share info, try to make a difference in whatever small way I can, try to improve things. It's still a largely male-dominated industry, heavily entrenched in tradition - but it's evolving through times of intense challenge and change! Baby steps. I remain positive that racing will flourish and endure.

EGGS: A History Book about the Epsom Girls Grammar School Old Girls Association (OGA) is being written by the now retired archivist. I'm Co-President of the OGA, as well as a long-time editor, so it went without saying that I'd be involved in this project. It's our 100 year Centenary celebrations next year in 2021 and I'll edit the draft. Upon first glance, I have to say it makes for fascinating reading - the life and times of girls who went to a ground-breaking school in Auckland city from the 1920s. There were plenty of challenges for them to work through. I had four chapters emailed through today and do need to get cracking as the book needs to be completed and published before March next year. And that's not a lot of time! The To-Do list never gets shorter!

A couple of years ago I edited a full history of the School for the school's Centenary. This OGA one is a bit more light-hearted and without such an education focus. It's more about events, fundraisers and the evolution of a solid and enduring connection with the school forged by old girls from early days. We Old Girls are now spread very far and wide across the world, in all sorts of professions. I love the connections I make on a virtually a daily basis. 

It's weird because I was never particularly passionate about high school days when I was there. It wasn't that I didn't enjoy it, but I definitely never loved it. Having said that, I never missed a single day and was always there way early (why?) I did all my homework and everything asked of me, passed everything with relative ease. If there's a rule in my world, I'll be fully reticent about breaking it, even if it doesn't work very well. Sometimes I'll challenge it but mostly I'll just endure and move on. 

Overall, I prefer a life without rules because then I can make my own ones that, more often than not, do actually work and have more to do with gut than Nanny State!

I did have fun at school, but I was pretty reserved and flew under the radar. I wasn't exactly shy, although people may have thought that I was stultifyingly so. It was more that I was silently observing and absorbing things around me. 

I never put my hand up in class (literally never!) and hated being selected to answer or comment on anything (especially a Shakespeare play). Flounders were more elegant than me in that situation. Loathed sports and PE, especially swimming. I had Omaha beach at the weekends for swimming, why would I want to get into a freezing cold school pool and do laps etc!?  No! As for team sports - please no. Leave me to solo sports so I can only let myself down! Or silently nail it and smile without anyone needing to know. 

I loved languages and geography and didn't mind science - although was probably too hasty and impatient when I look back at my time in the science lab. I wanted to see the result of experiments right away. Not the mark of a great scientist! I now realise that, even back then, I was just hankering to get on with real life.

I was lucky if I got an "extra" bit part in any drama production, or maybe I'd be assigned to scene changing or switching on lights. I never put myself forward for a part, even though I was always fascinated by drama and storytelling. Giving a speech was nightmare territory!

I never congregated in the loos to pluck eyebrows with the cool girls or discuss boyfriends I didn't have. I had more sense than to slap cooking oil on my legs and sit in the hot sun at lunchtime and end up looking like a lobster (what, why!?). I always wore my socks pulled up because you were supposed to (rules, sigh). I was a late developer. I had braces. I was friends with the nerdy brainy girls. And, egad, some were from foreign countries - China, India, Sri Lanka, Europe! You get the picture! 

Thank goodness for Omaha weekends - to get away from all that and be free on a white sand beach with a bike, a whole other group of kids (mostly boys), and the chance to be the zany person I really was that I never felt I could be at school! 

Now I'm bloody President of the Old Girls Association and really understand what I gained from my school days and teachers, despite - and because of - my oddities. All that observation and absorption of what was going on around me stood me in good stead as it enabled me to understand beyond myself. Which is why I called my business Beyond. 

These days I am passionate about the school, love storytelling (written or verbal), give plenty of speeches, am never early, and could never be called shy or reserved! I wear what I want and don't follow any fashion rules (comfort and expression is much better). I will never ever wear a uniform. Ever. I'm still not keen on PE or swimming!

Writing this is a little cathartic because I really was a very reserved young schoolgirl, content to stay in the background and observe.  I always knew I wanted to go to the university of life and I started taking copious and valuable notes at a very young age, so all that observation gave me my best life lessons. I shed my youthful naivety later than most, but am very glad I did.

You're a child and youngster for such a short time. After that, you're always an adult. 

Omaha: This latest Omaha newsletter involves researching and writing a history about the people of Omaha through the years. Of which I'm one of the founding families! I've written articles about the history of the land, the development etc in the past - but not about the people. So talking with some of the folk who have been around since those early days in the early 1970s will be great. Having said that, a lot of them are not around any more. I already did quite a lot to this end this back in 2013 when I considered writing a book about the development of Omaha and wrote about five chapters. So I have plenty of info and photos and connections to capture the essence of the early days of Omaha's development and its evolution to what it is today.

This evening, in preparation, I went through some of the old Omaha photo albums and had a good old reminisce and chuckle. Reminders of great times. But OMG some of those photos are utterly outrageous! It was party city - for young and old alike! Thankfully we kids didn't have cameras to capture our outrageous moments - but the adults certainly did!!!  Laugh out loud stuff.  And a tinge of cringe!

There were dress-up parties, bbqs with freshly caught seafood, roast pigs on spits, functions on the beach, Christmas and New Year knees-ups, impromptu celebrations etc etc. 

Mothers' Day beach bbq on Omaha Beach - 1970s style!
Dads cooking, mothers relaxing in the shade, kids off playing or swimming ...
Perfect! And tame!

It was a windy day so the closest I got to outside was opening the sliders and going onto the deck. Too busy and too windy to go to the beach. All good, today is Monday, it's a work day. And I worked all day. And much of the night.

Chinese pork ribs for dinner, with a coleslaw I made. Yum.

Watched a bit of tv. Listened to a bit of music. More work, writing etc. A good productive day. 

SHARE-NOTE OF THE DAY:
Hope & Despair ...

HOPE:
Positively striving for, and never giving up on, your dreams and desires despite the challenges.

DESPAIR:
Trudging a road of never-ending hopelessness while dwelling upon misery and anguish is not a pathway to hope. 

Dance for hope! (My ink artwork)

nothing's all right, but doesnt mean everything's all wrong