Too Much Volunteering?

Colin says that I have taken on too much this summer, and I started to think we was right when I realized that I was double-booked two nights a week, and also booked for two of the other nights most weeks. For someone who loves just laying under a blanket knitting, I signed up for too many things!

A few things that I have been trying lately involve biking. You all know how much we like to bike, and I feel that I should get involved in creating the bike culture and infrastructure that I want to see in the city. So I try to organize City Bikes rides (normal clothes and pretty bikes) through the city, attend political meetings and public consultations about bike infrastructure, and most recently, volunteer with TriTAG to help promote transit, walking, and biking in the region. I've been a little less active in all of these this summer, since something had to drop if I wanted to sleep and also see Colin, but I hope to devote more time to them in the fall.

Some other smaller time commitments are to try to get some exercise. I'm not great at policing myself to go to the gym or for an exercise bike ride, so I joined some activities to help! Some friends from school formed an ultimate frisbee team, so I joined their team once a week for the summer. That was fun, but running is not really my thing. So near the end of the summer, I started going to bike polo. Yes, bike polo, it's amazing! Colin has joined as well, and we have a lot of fun swinging mallets at each other :)

Photographic evidence:

Those things are all good, little commitments that I can choose to do each week. But the main thing taking up my time this summer has been the K-W Knitters' Guild. I took on the role of Fair Coordinator this year, which is a huge job even if it does come with a committee (or maybe because it does). There is just so much to do all the time, keeping in contact with everyone involved and making sure things happen on schedule. This year's fair was last Saturday, and it was a grand success (if I do say so myself). My hard work paid off! People were happy! It's very gratifying to see something come together so well after so much work. The approximate numbers for this year are 1900 attendees, 52 vendors in 80 booths, and 50 volunteers, which is the usual (so yes, I knew what I was getting into).

There is even one photo of me from the fair day, proving my existence. Otherwise, I was running around all day, checking on my smoothly-running machine, and hardly even had time to shop for yarn. This was taken just before I opened the doors to at least 300 people who arrived before the Fair was even open!