“I will refer you to the ABQ-AC meeting minutes or the recording of the meeting if you wish for a full recap. However, there were two main topics of discussion pertinent to Psycepts. First the upcoming arrival of residents in PsyTown. The second topic was the ‘Psycept Shindig’ event taking place in five weeks. Both topics are on our own agenda for further discussion.
“As community representatives, we had no proposals from the Psycept residents to present to the ABQ-AC. For next month’s council meeting, the ABQ-AC asks that we present a brief synopsis of how the resident relocation goes and provide a more detailed written report for their perusal. Kyle and Wendy will attend next month’s meeting and will present. We’ll have the presentation and report ready to be discussed and approved at our next PsyCouncil meeting in two weeks. The ABQ Area Council also requests a written report of the ‘Psycept Shindig’ and our participation in the event. We’re five weeks out and have a basic outline of what our council and constituents are doing. In addition, we need to be prepared to present our portion of a review of the event at the ABQ-AC meeting two months from now, after the ‘Psycept Shindig’.”
Wendy hates the news, I can tell. She’s one of the attending councilmembers for the next two meetings, so will be stuck presenting twice. I’m not scheduled to attend until months five and six, then not again until the thirteenth month and the first month next year. I’ll be one of the two councilmembers who provide the historic perspective to the Psycept members at next year’s ABQ-AC meeting. You also read correctly; the GT has a 13-month calendar. Each month is 28 days except the last month, which has 29 days, and each month is named after an animal. The calendar makes sense, but it can sometimes hurt my head trying to match up the dates between the 13-month and the 12-month calendar I grew up with. Good thing someone developed a date converter and recently an app. The app asks for too many permissions, so I just use the old worksheet date converter to plug and play.
As we cover fourteen months, each PsyCouncil member attends four ABQ-AC meetings per term. Twenty-six PsyCouncil meetings and four ABQ-AC meetings totals thirty meetings per councilmember, plus a few regional and conservatorship meetings, all with no compensation. You can see why so few Psycepts are willing to put themselves forth for a council seat. Listening to Gloria speak, our role is also made clear. The Psycept Council is not a governing body, we are an advisory council. We represent the Psycept community at the Albuquerque Area Council meetings as well as the twice a year Bosque Regional meeting and once a year at the SWACon meeting in Wir-Kiva. On behalf of the community we represent, we submit requests or proposals to the municipal, regional, or conservatorship governing councils. We also serve as a liaison, carrying information back and forth from the larger councils to our fellow Psycepts. As we found early on, many people don’t pay attention to the ABQ-AC meetings, even when it pertained to our interests. Even now when everything is available online, we still need someone to spell it out for us. TL;DR indeed.
“First, we’ll discuss the arrival of the new residents,” Kyle takes control of the two side screens and displays the arrival schedules. “As you can see, we have small groups scheduled to greet the new arrivals at the ABQ military base. The times are staggered to coincide with the different arrival times of the five airbuses plus the ground transportation. If you volunteered as a greeter, then you should already have your schedule and shirt. The color of our shirts is yellow, for welcome and friendliness. If you haven’t received anything or if you have any questions, please see me after the council meeting as I’m overseeing the greeters.”
“My team is handling transporting arrivals to their various new dwellings. I could toss up the map and routes on the screen, but frankly it can be confusing unless you’re in my group as we’ve gone over this ad nauseam. I’ve assigned residents to specific buses, and the bus drivers have a set route they’ll follow. I have a ride-along assigned to each bus who is responsible for checking in the resident at pick-up and making sure the resident disembarks at the correct drop-off point. All drivers have their information and the ride-alongs have their schedule and lists of new residents to check off both pick-up and drop-off. We even did practice runs yesterday. Our shirts are blue, like ferrying people over the water, I guess. I’ll be at the shuttle pick-up area at the military base if any issues arise.” For someone who got stuck with handling the shuttle route because she was late to the transition meeting last month when we were volunteering for assignments, Wendy did a very good job with this.
“I have escort duty. When the new resident disembarks at their apartment complex drop-off, there will be an escort there to guide them to their new dwelling. Each escort has specific people they will welcome and guide. I worked out the timing with Wendy, so each escort should have about the same number of residents to usher throughout the day. The escort will show them the apartment complex amenities, take the resident or family to their new dwelling, then go through their new resident package items. On the screen is an example of the items, both photos and the check-off sheets. We made an online photobook for the residents, so it will just be a matter of flipping through pictures of towels, sheets, cooking utensils, dishes, and all the other items we are providing rather than pulling everything out of the kits. The resident will be given check-off sheets, one for the
