“Yes, I see several nods around the room. Thank you, Gray. You’ve been fantastic with suggesting areas of purposeful action but leaving the goals and project tasks to us to work on.”
“Thanks for the feedback. Let me know if you need any assistance before our next video conference on the 15th. I also appreciate you accommodating my request to change from our routine first and third Monday meetings to Wednesday this week.”
The call ends and Echo and Shotzie seem okay to stay in the office. My next meeting will only be thirty minutes long. Then I’ll take them outside to the dog run for the rest of the morning while I work in the office. Speaking of my next call, it’s time to join in.
“Morning, Gray. What do you have for us?”
“Hello, Director Lowell. Annabeth is keeping you apprised of the event status. I have nothing new on that front since yesterday. However, a few new things cropped up in the past week. First, the date is set for Professor Biobaku to travel to Auraria. We already knew of his plans to workshop some of the Psycept culture and history programs he and his team have been developing. Second, the ABQ-AC is asking for a status report for the event at the next town council meeting. Since I am the councilmember most involved with the process, I’ll be the one writing the report. Kyle and Wendy will be the councilmembers in attendance and will give a short summary of the report without a formal presentation component. We’ll do that next month after the event.”
“Well, isn’t that nice. The ABQ Area Council tried to get me to provide a detailed report of the whole thing and I said nope, we’re the hosts and you’re invitees. You know your part and can show up and see what else we’re offering. Look at them coming to you for information.”
“Well, I am limiting the report to only the details the Psycept Council is privy to. Basically, the Psycept programs we’re developing and Professor Biobaku’s media schedule. Everything else I know about it is due to my being a contract employee with you and I won’t include that as it falls under our Confidentiality Agreement. Having said that, I also can’t furnish you with my report ahead of time. I’ll write it and present it at the next Psycept Council meeting which means it will be a matter of record and you can petition the Council Clerk for a copy. But since the report I’m writing is as a councilmember at the behest of our governing council, I must keep the lines intact and separate.”
“I trust you, Gray. I have a third discussion item to bring up. We’ll have visitors from other conservatorships in attendance. In fact, at least one person from each conservatorship will be here, even those that don’t have Psycepts. Annabeth and I are handling all the transportation and lodging issues and nothing about the programming needs to be changed. Just wanted to let you know in case you see me walking around in the middle of a gaggle of strangers.”
“Cool, well if you see me fleeing from your gaggle, nothing personal. I don’t have anything more to bring up. How about you?”
We end the call just in time. I see Shotzie getting up from her bed and Echo sitting up. I put my gloves on, gather their blankets, toys, and beds, then head outside. I make sure they have plenty of water and food in the dog run when I settle them. They’ll be fine there for the next couple of hours.
Back in my office, I begin to parse through the survey results. As expected, many negative comments about not providing slides or other materials nor allowing forms to be submitted until everyone is through orientation week. I expect the end of the week attendees will be thanking us for these same things. I focus on reading comments outside of the two consistent negatives. Some speak about the fear of disease from fresh picked fruits and vegetables from the community garden. My goodness, do these people keep up with the news about various bacterial outbreaks from industrial food processing plants? Yet, they’re afraid of dirt on their bell peppers. Unease about sages is also apparent. I’ll need to request that the cultural classes held by the different Psycept categories include plenty of information about sages and maybe even Bone or Blood Sage guest speakers. Other than these few issues, many comments are cautiously optimistic in tone. After reviewing our overall scores for the day and reading through the comments, I work on my part of the Psycept Council report about the new residents settling in. I also send out the surveys to my team for them to peruse.
Next up is reviewing the topics for our meeting with Imital tomorrow. Libby and I worked on this last week, so it’s a quick review to catch any last-minute issues. Everything looks good, now lunchtime. I spend lunch outside at the picnic table watching the dogs get along well together. When I suggest that it’s time to come back inside, their tails droop so I congratulate myself for being smart enough to understand that. “Fine, you can stay out here.” I fill up their water bowls, then head inside.
I have one last thing to work on before the meeting with Sharon, then finally my last consultation of the week. Before I can get started, my desk phone rings.
“Gray’s Agency, Gray speaking.”
“Hello, dear. There’ll be a few more people on our meeting in an
