Sister Cate Chardonnay

My nice neighbor asked me if I would be interested in assisting at a local Catholic hospital, and she invited me to attend an annual meeting. Which I did--mostly because Mr. Sweetie was out at a dinner meeting and the kidlets were at a friend's for the evening.

It turns out that the invitation to assist was to come onto the board of the hospital Auxilliary, and this was their annual meeting. Which, since I'm neither Catholic nor medically inclined, seemed like a bit out of my core competency. But, I went anyway, and ...wow.

I ended up at a table of 5 retired nurse/nuns, plus my friend who is a retired nurse. Some of the coolest woment in the world are nuns over the age of 65. The evening started with an hors d'oeuvres dinner--cheese, crackers, little barbeque sandwiches, seafood wontons, California rolls, salami, skewered shrimp, and egg rolls. And wine. Who knew that Catholic hosptial meetings would have wine? And nuns are good drinkers? We each had a tastefullly sized glass of chardonnay at our table, and one of the nuns noticed, and suggested--"they should just give us a bottle." So, as the youngest one at the table, I got a bottle. And a corkscrew. And I filled all those nun's glasses. Again. And the designated driving nun was the biggest drinker at the table!

One of the other nuns started introducing all of us at the table to someone else as "Sister [Name on the Name Tag]. So, I was made a nun--which I think takes the obligations of volunteering a little bit too far, and will certainly be a surprise to Mr. Sweetie.

So, are these my people? Is there room at the table for a non-Catholic, non-medical white wine drinker? If I do join this group, I'm going to suggest that "Auxilliary" needs to be changed. It is a hopelessly old fashioned name--it's as dated as being called "Mrs. Hisfirstname Hislastname." Which is, of course, how someone was introduced. But, let's face it--this organization was started at a time when all the doctors were men and their wives raised money for the hospital. The Auxilliary still does that--which explains a lot of things, such as:

• why it is still called "The Auxilliary"
• why the average age in the room was about 74
• why the only men in the room at any time were the chef and the two presenters...and at least two of them were gay
• why it felt like I was at a meeting of the women's group at my church.

Apparently, some organizations have truly made themselves independent non-profit organizations, and have developed professional fundraising efforts. The library, for example, has a separate organization that raises money for acquisitions and capital improvement, and lobbies for more public money--which has an executive director, separate office space and full time staff, all independent of the library system itself.

In quaint old Saint Paul, however, the model seems to be that the fundraising happens through the Ladies' Auxilliary--still!--holding luncheons and fashion shows and running the gift shop. There is part of me that just loves that about Saint Paul--if it worked for our great-grandparents, by God, it will work for us!

Part of me thinks that, perhaps, it's time for the Ladies' fundraising to move to a more professional level?

But hey--keep serving the wine!