Budget meeting.

On Friday there was a budget meeting at the Bugsplat Visitor Centre that went quite well. For me. Due to a last minute rostering drama, I was also on duty at front counter, so I was sitting in the doorway between the public and private areas. I think it was good for the board to be witness the fact that when a volunteer can't make it, I either do it myself or close the shop - a rather obvious fact that has nevertheless been eluding some of them. I think it was good too that they were witness to the existence of customers and telephone calls.
And.... any time somebody cornered me with a tricky question I could excuse myself apologetically and dissapear next door, perhaps to serve a customer, perhaps... to pull faces from the other room. The genuine and occasional feigned disruptions were excellent for my battle strategy for this budget meeting which was a simple three step;
~ thoroughly exhaust them with unnecessary detail
~ distract them with red herrings
~ offer them all a nice simple way out of the mess which (almost incidentally) involves agreeing to all my demands.

Readers, rest easy.
My demands were really pretty ordinary. I want to be able to have some funds with which to pay the overdue bills. I want to be able to buy the odd stamp without having to write a set of haiku to explain myself. I want to reduce our opening hours just a bit so that we don't have to close the shop when things go wrong. I want a key to the building and I want to be able to sign the cheques.

Then I'm off to Venezuela.