You joined what ?

I'm not much of a "joiner".  I belong to my church, the ARRL (Amateur Radio Relay League), and Farm Bureau (you have to to buy insurance). I also belong to the Soybean Growers ... involved a seed company promo.  But last week Sue and I joined the local Ruritan club.

OK, so what is Ruritan? Quoting the website http://ruritan.org "Ruritan is a civic service organization made up of local clubs in urban areas, small towns and rural communities.

Ruritan's purpose is to create a better understanding among people and through volunteer community service, make America's communities better places in which to live and work. The slogan of Ruritan is "Fellowship, Goodwill and Community Service." Club membership represents a cross-section of the community in which the club serves, and is not restrictive with regard to occupation, social position, or any other specific criteria.

Unlike most civic service organizations, Ruritan rarely has national programs. Rather, each club surveys its own community as to the needs of that community and then works to meet some of those needs." 

Why did we join?  Because Ruritan does good things and, well, to be honest the club needs us.  The average age local member is probably on Social Security.  If the club is to continue doing good it needs younger members.  3 of us joined last week.  Linda is actively recruiting new members.  Younger members.  I anticipate this causing problems.

In a discussion with Keith Ray, the President of Lincoln Christian University, a few years ago he pointed out something I am finding more and more true.   People older than I am will come to a meeting just because it is time for a meeting. People younger than I am will come to a meeting if there is a reason.  After about the second meeting they attend where the who goal and purpose of the meeting was to have a meeting because it was meeting night they don't show up any more.

I've seen this concept proven time and time again, in meetings at LCU, in church meetings, in fire department meetings, in other organizational meetings.   If things are not happening and a good reason shown for younger folks to invest their time they disappear.

The other thing is, younger members are going to want to try new and different things.  Things that may have been tried 20 years ago and didn't work ... then.  And they are going to speak up and ask questions.  Good questions. Awkward questions.  And old answers won't satisfy them.

I have been hesitant to join for a couple reasons.  One, I have enough monthly meetings the way it is.  And second, I am involved enough with what I'm doing already I don't need any more responsibilities. But the local club needs me and others if it is going to continue.  Who knows, we might get some new blood involved in Ruritan that has not been involved in anything in the community.  THAT would be great

The cemetery has an email address?

Yes, the Walnut Prairie Cemetery has an email address.  The new Cemetery Oversight Act requires the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation (IDFPR) to have a Cemetery Oversight Database.  The Act requires cemeteries to enter burial information into this database. The data is to be entered within ten business days of the burial.

So, I spent the afternoon trying to get myself up to speed and registering the cemetery.  They want an email for the administrator.  I thought about it, and decided to set up an email account for the cemetery.  I could have used mine, but this way if anyone else should take over what I do the email address isn't mine.  I went to gmail.com and 5 minutes later it was up and going.  I set it to forward to my personal email account.

I then registered the cemetery with the Illinois Cemetery Oversight Database.  At that point you discover you have to pre-pay for burial registration credits.  Yep, the state requires us to enter data in the database, but we have to pay for the right to enter data in the database.  If I were cynical I'd say the Governor's brother in law must be in the database business. I guess it's a good idea.  But I remember an old saying about the road to Hell being paved with good intentions.

The Cemetery Oversight Act P.A. 096-0863 (COA) is a 213 page document (click here for the condensed 81-page version) that was signed into law on January 18, 2010. This new law makes more than 40 separate references to rule making for the administration and implementation of this Act.  Or as someone put it, the laws were not being followed so the answer is make more laws.

If you walk into my office you'll see a nice four color notice framed and hanging on the wall.  Since it is the closest thing to an office for the cemetery I have to have this thing displayed on the wall.  In color, black and white won't do.

So if you have absolutely nothing else to do you can email the cemetery at walnutprairiecemetery@gmail.com

Gloom, despair, and agony on me.

I had a bad feeling all morning.  I couldn't explain it, just felt it.  Nothing to cause it, just a feeling.  We went to a seed corn winter meeting at noon.  I'm going up the road to Martinsville

and hit the button to open the passenger window and knock the snow off it.  It made a less than desirable noise and didn't go back up.  It's now got duct tape all around the edge holding it up.

After the meeting I stopped by the Cellular One office.  I had backed up my phone contacts on the computer a couple days ago and somehow duplicated all of them.  I had everyone listed at least twice.

OK, no big deal.  You just copy everything to the SIM card, delete all the phone contacts, then copy them back to the phone. No big deal.  Except I couldn't get it to happen.  I called customer service who suggested taking it to a local office.  Which why I ended up in the Casey store.

Remember that bad feeling I was having.  I was showing the lady as Cell One how I was trying to move contacts and delete the duplicates ... when I lost ALL of them.  On the bright side, maybe with this out of the way maybe I could improve my bad feeling for the day.

On the bright side of things, after supper I plugged the phone into the computer, touched a few buttons, and reloaded all my contacts.

That is a wonderful screen.  Does wonders for your attitude.

I'm a glutton for punishment ...

I guess I'm a glutton for punishment.  Just ask most anyone who has taken ICS-300 training. I know, What's  that?  ICS=300 is part of NIMS.

"NIMS provides a consistent, flexible and adjustable national framework within which government and private entities at all levels can work together to manage domestic incidents, regardless of their cause, size, location or complexity."

Huh?

OK, try this.  NIMS provides a set of standard organizational structures, as well as requirements for managing incidents and events.  It is a requirement for just about any federal grants.  It's also a good concept .. just a bit of a pain.  It is result of a couple Presidential directives, HSPD-6 and HSPD-8

I guess the short explanation is it is a system for managing people
 

Actually I've had ICS-300  training before, along with 100, 200, 400 and 700.  So why am I repeating a class most people hate, wasting 2 days in class again?  A couple reasons.  This system is designed to make things work better when things get bad. Anytime I can make it work better it is good.   The other thing is anytime I take a class like this I benefit.  It may not be from the class itself, but I get a benefit.

One of the consequences of fewer firefighters being available (especially during the day) is more and more mutual aid.  This means we get in more situations with multiple departments on scene.  Anything that helps us all work together better is important.

And there are the side benefits.  I met some folks I'd never met before. EMT from Toledo, firefighter from Newton, Chief from Claremont.  Worked out well, Claremont is asking to join our MABAS group, so it was nice to get to know Randy before we voted on allowing them to join.  Spent the day setting beside the Crawford County Sheriff.  Always good to have a friendly law enforcement officer.

And I think I stayed awake through the whole thing!