Sponging or Spongebob?

Cast your mind back. Can you remember what you were thinking, feeling, saying at your first few meetings at your prospective Zonta Club?

My first meeting was not what I expected

Sorry - just kidding .... my first meeting is still vivid in my mind and was held in far more salubrious surrounds. I remember being welcomed at the door by a couple of the most friendly and embracing women I had ever met and spent the rest of meeting discovering incredible women doing great things.

Over the years I worked out how Zonta worked and it has been my experience that the larger the Zonta get together, the more amplified are the extremes between the best that Zonta can be and the most infuriating. On balance, my time in Zonta is richly rewarding and I am deeply thankful for the opportunity to participate.

I find it easier to think of Zonta as a virtual organisation. There is only you and me and 'Zonta' only happens when we get together and make it happen. In that way, I create my experience of Zonta looking through the lens of my own perspective. Gee, this post is deep .... or.....

 So it is I, and I alone, who labels events as either gut wrenching or heart lifting.

ZI  Convention Election Speeches

and

Amelia Earhart Fellows' Presentations

This coming weekend is the Area 2 Area Meeting, and at some minor level the best and the worst will play out again. It's hard to get the balance right at Area Meetings - so many different people coming together with widely varied needs. But that's only in my head from my perspective.

So I am suggesting to you, gentle reader, to step up and create your experience. These meetings are the times when we, together, have the opportunity to make the most of Zonta. So what sort of experience would I like to create?

• Fun, joy and laughter of great company and fellowship - after all Zonta is my hobby. What moments have you enjoyed that have brought satisfaction to your world? How could you keep those happening?
• Growth in membership and service projects, and the outcomes those two together create. How can we help interested people become members in a welcoming way? How can we integrate the gifts those people are offering into our club projects?
• Transparency, clarity and fairness in management guidelines. Have you looked at the District Goals, Rules and Guidelines lately? Do they guide the District in way you believe is optimal? How about ZI By-Laws?

At District Conference in September all Zontians have the chance to put the motions that guide our District operations and any motions to be considered at International Convention. Area Meetings are where you can start those conversations. Make good use of your time this weekend.

If we're (me .... perhaps you too?) going to Orlando in 2014 I wanna be ready with some really great ideas to seed with that crowd.

Stoopid technology things

Hi everyone
Thank you for your emails and well wishes! And I am SOOOOO EXCITED!!!!

And a big CHEERDY DOO PIP PIP ! for Mary Jane and Penny - first up as Followers

Bert is 'following' me! How cool is that!

'It's a happy holiday with Mary' - The Mambo No. 5 of 1910

Apparently, the comments aren't working - so I shall flick some more swiches, turn the crank, check the gauges and take a spoon full of sugar - hopefully we'll be flying in moments.

Edit: I've turned off the Moderation so you should see your comments immediately. If it gets too hairy or personal I reserve the right to turn it back on again or delete the comment

A peaceful Easter wish to all

The chocolate brownie Easter Bunny visited me today

Foraging

I've never met a Zontian who doesn't enjoy a good meal, and probably a glass of fruity red, perhaps a margarita or two.  Oh and cheese - pretty keen on cheese. So you'll be thrilled to discover that there are over 170 eateries in Walt Disney World, and also, NONE of them are this:

I confess - this is literally right at the border. Hey, don't judge! It's the only place you'll get FREE WI-FI!!
But there's really no need for McDonalds at WDW because they already have a creepy clown scaring the kiddies.

Designed by Stephen King?

Let's go back the restaurants inside the World. There is everything from the lowliest popcorn cart through to the most amazing, award winning restaurants. So there it is - my secret is out - I really only go for the food. Days and days of non-stop dining in fabulously themed restaurants. I become the human equivalent of a combine harvester, except I'm harvesting the golden wheaty goodness of Mickey Waffles.

pass the maple syrup

During my last festival of the expanding waistline, I indulged in:

Teppanyaki at Teppan Edo, with their way cool Onion Volcano

Steamed whole Maine lobster at Narcoossees

With their fabulous Glowtini

Yum .. Duck Spring Rolls - oh and my infinitely expanding dress

And ate lobster eggs benedict with Alice and the Mad Hatter at the Grand Floridian Resort

Fresh strawberry soup

 ... and on it goes. Great humungous piles of never ending yummy food.

And guess what? Next trip - FREE DINING!

yep - all of it FREE - Every lobster, steak, dessert, salad, ice cream, bread roll, fish, vegetable and mickey waffle.

Did I tell you there are no calories in Disney food?

Patron Saint

Mrs Banks is from the famous Disney musical: Mary Poppins. She hires the flying nanny due to her inability to look after children as she is off fighting for the vote for women with the suffragette movement.

Disney puts a lot of effort into detail and attempting to be partially educational. Mrs. Banks gives us a nice reference to Mrs Pankhurst being "clapped in irons again".

Emmaline Pankhurst was the founder of the Women's Social and Political Union, along with a couple of her own daughters. It appears they were a formidable mob not shying away from violence and militant tactics in their fight to secure votes for women in the UK in the early 1900s.

Is that an Australian crest on the banner? Thoughts?

Although in Disney's version Mrs. Banks is not dragged off to the slammer and has the most amazing tailoring.

Oh ... the place I'll go! (again and again)

I'm booked.
A long flight over the vast oceans, to be transported to another world, another place, where time doesn't exist.
To a world away from the world - to a place that doesn't really exist.
To have all of my senses completed immersed - different tastes, sounds, sights, sensations, emotions in new and amazing ways impossible to be experienced anywhere else.
To a place where my existential angst dissappears and the child within finally does exist.

I'm going to ORLANDO, FLORIDA, USA!! 

And then I'll go again for Zonta International Convention in 2014.

Swapping this ....

... for this!

It's also a place where the food has no calories, sleep is hard to come by, and money is meaningless - cause as Disney likes to remind: 'memories are priceless'.