Our home at Meadowood Senior Living has been a pleasant relief of many household
responsibilities, much to my delight. Along with this has been the opportunity to engage in what I
view as worthwhile activities in our community. Annual Veterans’ Day and Memorial Day
ceremonies are events with which I became involved from the time of our arrival.
This past Memorial Day observance presented itself as a typical – “Let’s do it better than last
year” opportunity. With the leadership of Carl Sensenig along with lots of help from Chuck
Kitson and Jay Haines, we met regularly to create and implement our approach, including the
PowerPoint, speaker, and color guard participation.
By March we were well on our way to being ready – James P. Petersen, local author and writer, engaged as the speaker, PowerPoint close to completion, and all details being addressed. By mid-April I thought we were close to being done!
But then changes began happening, causing revision after revision. As I look back, I get it…but
not during the uprisings! 3 days before the production, we received changes from Jim Petersen
that impacted the PowerPoint presentation. More changes!
Feeling totally exposed, I suggested to Jay Haines that perhaps in the future we need to
establish a deadline for final changes. In Jay’s infinite wisdom, he said “We can handle changes
up to the last day!” This got me thinking. Writers are never done…edits are made until the last
minute. Speakers are making changes at the podium – presentation changes are a good thing!
After some thought, I summed it up this way: “’We encourage creativity by not limiting it.”
Deadlines limit creativity – we need to find a way to operate without them! As Jay did.
And, those final changes made by Jim made the presentation all the better!
