Board Meeting

I'm fortunate to serve on a number of boards in the city and County of the Salt Lake area. I have to admit initially when I would serve on boards the service was usually in tandem with my career. To some degree, this makes only sense by serving on boards Which meets the criteria of my work plans. Not that I lived my whole worklife Machiavellian but there is some sense to the idea that if I'm housing coordinator it seems that I would best be served by serving on a Board of Directors that deal with housing and I did. For me this was doubly fortunate because I was able to deduct hours spent on these board meetings when they were held during hours which were not work. Many of the boards I served on were held over lunch and some were held in the evenings. I was able to deduct our for our when serving on my own time. I have always been surprised But how impressed folks were of my community service.

As I indicated many of the boards I served on were held over lunch hours. Many times when this happened the provider would also provide lunches for the people serving. Over the 30 years of my service many of those lunches were hot and extremely tasty. As the years in the budgets waned the hot lunches and protein rich lunches waned as well. Of those boards that still provided a meal to meal usually consisted of cold cuts and salads. In defense of these managers I must say the cold cuts were extreme high quality meets. Corn beef, roast beef, turkey, chicken, ham and a large selection of cheeses and a beautiful salad with all kinds of fixings. We made our own sandwiches as he went down the line picking the ingredients off the table in front of us. Often I would forgo the bread and just load my plate with meets and cheeses. Again there were managers who felt self-conscious with cold cuts so I offered to the bars, and taco bars again do it yourself meals. It's all good. The comp time and the meals were small consolation for service. I was lucky to get them I don't think I appreciated them as much as when I left state service.

The boards I now serve on a server on my own time which means them there because I want to be there or they want me there. I love having the ability to serve. I love having a place to go in the place to be and I love the small or big recognition I get when I show up to one of these meetings. Last week the meeting was the Utah Non-Profit Housing Corporate. I have served on this board maybe 20 years. They do not provide a meal but they do provide snacks, candy's and usually taco chips and dips. They meet in the afternoon, late in the afternoon often going past 5 o'clock. We used to meet monthly but now we meet maybe three times a year. We provide affordable to low income housing mainly to seniors and people with disabilities. I am living in one of his units and I'm thankful. Machiavellian or not I'm glad I served on this particular board is saved my bacon. It's a little bit different now that I no longer represent an agency. No one is really said anything about my position on the board because even if I am not an agency member I still need to criteria of the population served that being a senior in a person to disability. I believe I still hold in the value to the organization. Now there is also the added value of being an “inside person”. I'm often asked questions at a meeting about what is happening for a live. I'm not really a spy but I would have no qualms If asked to work undercover. I'm just glad to still have value.