PETS

The first stop in recreating these past three months has to be PETS.

The long weekend started with a tour of next year's facility. This is pretty key because that is where my PETS will be held. With all eight Florida Districts taking part in PETS, we had outgrown our old facilities and had to restrict attendance. The food had not been good the past couple years and moving from one meeting to another required walking outdoors, which is tough in pouring rain and high winds on your way to a banquet. The new facility is all under one roof, and while we expect there will be wrinkles to iron out, there is room to grow. The chairman of our executive committee is also an attorney who specialized in these type contracts was got us what appears to be a very favorable contract, costing no more than the other, smaller facility.

Friday morning the current PETS board, the DGEs whose PEs and AGs were being trained, met with us, the incoming board to pass along any issues that had come up during their year. Most of them had to do with logistics, things we hope the new facility will take care of.

I took part in our District's three breakout sessions - times where district specific training took place. I facilitated one session titles "How Can We Help You?" where I went over all the different resources available to them as club presidents, as well as those available to their standing committee chairs. One of the things we did this year as a training team - and I am happy to say was my contribution - was to align our district structure with the club structure as described in the Club Leadership Plan. This allowed us to print a simple "Quick Reference Guide" that listed the district and R.I. resources available for each position in the club. Every office and chair and sub-chair at the club level has a counterpart at the district level. Pretty cool, pretty simple.

Other than the district breakouts my time was spent in board meetings, setting out the 2012 PETS so I was unable to observe the multi-district training sessions. I have seen them many times before, but it's still nice to keep up as I always seem to learn something new.

By the time PETS was over on Saturday, my 2012-2013 DG classmates had a good start. It really helps to have the executive committee of experienced folks with good continuity to advise us. It is a pretty well oiled machine. However we did go home with some homework. We had to notify our district of a $20 per attendee increase in cost and we had to start thinking about staff. Each of us will have to recommend two people for the operations committee and four people to work as discussion leaders.

One of the cool things we decided on has nothing to do with training. On Thursday evening it is traditional to have a cocktail part with light appetizers for the arriving PEs and their spouses. With our new faility being directly across the street from Disney, our group pushed back the time a bit and made it a dessert reception, cash bar, on the top, 27th, floor - a glass enclosed penthouse where we can enjoy fellowship and watch the fireworks at Disney. Pretty fun idea.