Photo by Deborah Edward
I’m a relatively unruffable person. When COVID-19 lockdown began I got ready. My closest family and I, living blocks apart, figured out how to organize our worlds where they could get groceries for me, I could hang with my 5-year old grandson, and together we could let the story unfold. I started a few good habits, like reading Heather Cox Richardson’s “Letters from an American” each morning and doubling my meditation time. But time began to work differently, and the wrong things began to creep into my thinking: fear, doubt, despair, alarm, suspicion, grouchiness. So I turned to finding things that could distract me, engage me, inspire me, and allow for action, results and success. And there was ninety-nine girlfriends’ calendar - waiting for me.
When the COVID-19 lockdown began. Ninety-nine girlfriends was in the midst of lots of what I call high-touch membership recruiting--meaning in-person events where we could shake hands and hug. Our calendar of activities scheduled out the work of my committee – Member Education. We’re charged with presenting programs around an annual learning question as well as offering other favorite programs. Over the course of four years, the education calendar had settled into a rhythm of a few spring events, a summer break with assorted social activities and then a ramp-up of autumn programming. Wrong calendar for COVID-19. The prescience of other girlfriends who had friends, family or personal experiences giving them a better forecasting sense about when we’d reopen made it clear quite quickly that in-person activities would not be happening anytime soon.
Early in lockdown the Women’s Foundation of Oregon invited ninety-nine girlfriends to join a zoom seminar about a relief fund for those affected by the early implications of COVID-19. The new Relief Fund was supporting domestic violence shelters needing to find safe alternative housing for their clients, the child care centers losing business but trying to retain jobs and others who were at immediate risk of having to close critical social fabric services. We jumped at the chance, and got a quick lesson in Zoom technology. The event reached more than 150 members. This response showed us there was a thirst for connection, for information and for ways to take action. It provided evidence that we needed to do more. Our Member Education Committee quickly pivoted to embrace the virtual technology. We produced our Discovery Forum online, and created new summer programs that could be online, but would also be interactive, informational, supportive and fun.
Being a member of an all-volunteer women’s group with a very fluid structure means doing things differently than I did as an Executive Director, a consultant or a college teacher. I was guided by a few maxims that reflect our ninety-nine girlfriends culture and decision-making style:
Always learning
Err on the side of generosity
Strive for consensus, but majority rules
Recognize that although we all have different lived experiences, we share common values
Build on strengths
Diversity in perspectives creates deeper, richer, better results
When the news cycle made me despondent, I signed on to Linked-In and sleuthed the backgrounds and interests of new ninety-nine girlfriends, to find potential candidates to share their passion, expertise or experience in our “Let’s Talk About….” Series. When I awakened with a sense of impending doom, I’d pop onto my computer and clean up files and folders related to ninety-nine activities. I read up on what was happening across the world in other collective giving circles and supported my colleagues as they created new paths to get things done in our grantmaking and communications. I was lucky that I kept being invited to run a seminar, to answer a question, to speak with a new member – all worthwhile endeavors that could help me feel my agency, my worth, my value, that what I was doing was helping someone else.
Turning my despair to action resulted in a lively calendar of programming for ninety-nine girlfriends this summer. One of the most enjoyable activities was working with Kathy Masarie and her husband Chip to organize our “Unconference” – a delightful medley of online activities one summer Sunday afternoon that invited members to share their passions with other girlfriends, to co-create together and to appreciate the amazing energy that comes from being together. That experience, watching Chip write code to make our Unconference work, inspired me to sign up for an online class to learn the “python” coding language.
This summer I didn’t reach my goals in long-distance bike riding. I didn’t become a better piano player or learn to knit or crochet. My bread baking still falls flat, although my attempts to harvest my backyard fruits and make jam turned out well. My attempts to learn basic computer programming ended in tears. But my ninety-nine girlfriends activities yielded pleasure, pride, and purpose.
--Deborah Edward