This past week was a lesson in time management. I needed Katrina Carpenter to appear on time for a Member Spotlight story. When she did not show at the agreed time, I allowed one hour to pass before doing anything else, like calling Shanna about it or looking for a new 'on-the-spot' member to write about. An hour later, Carpenter is nowhere to be seen so I ask Abbey Dudek if she would please help me by standing in for her. Dudek is kind and her personality is exactly the kind that would make a member spotlight feature stand out. However, I was flat out of time, with the deadline after I finished writing the piece about her (at 1:30 a.m.) being 3 p.m. the next day, I thought I could ask anyone at all to give it at least a once-over before it got published later in the evening. I'm nagging J.R. Labbe even when I know she couldn't possibly give this piece the time it needed for editing. It turns out that this and submitting the piece without having a Rotarian available to look it over was a big mistake that both J.R. and Dudek were apt to tell me when I next saw them at the Rotary meeting on Friday. During the week, Dudek was kind enough, to be frank with me in a timely manner about any mistakes I made on her Member Spotlight social media output; this is the first time I've ever been called out for a misquote after something I've written goes live. I interviewed Carlo Capua and he asked me if I would share a copy of his Member Spotlight piece with him so that he could okay it before it goes live, which further makes me believe I must have done something really bad with Abbey's piece that qualifies Rotarians wanting a look at how they're being represented, or in my case, misrepresented?

I feel very low about what happened, I think it's possible I won't be wanted as a part-time Rotarian, maybe I don't deserve the respect yet and maybe I'm too flighty and irresponsible to stay that long, but somehow I feel like I destroyed whatever blessings were about to open up to me and I'm too afraid to even face J.R., who paid extra to let me stay at the Rotary meeting when I could hardly keep my composure, especially after Carlo's interview. To be fair, this has been a really hard lesson to understand and grow from. So, I've spent a majority of the weekend confused and concerned about what to do next when I clearly know what comes next, I'm just terrified to screw up this badly again.

Meanwhile, social media-wise, I was able to place a spot for Abbey's story on all our socials or as many that would publish. I used Canva's scheduling tool and found out in the same week, that we have a page on our website dedicated to Member Spotlight! I was excited and pleased because that means I don't have to "allude to" the website in social media posts. I hope to use it more when Carlo's story is done. Canva as a publishing tool is not horrible but it could use some fixing (a short maintenance error or another issue) could force Canva to pause all movement until the issue is over with. In cooler news, the Rotary now has a place for my Member Spotlight stories on the main website which was what I've wanted since I started here. It is the following link: https://www.rotaryfortworth.org/page/memberspotlights

I, fortunately, was able to interview Katrina after all but it was very late and I struggled to get her to open up. I resolved to keep up with her during the next few weeks so that when her Rotary anniversary comes up later this month, we can highlight that in the story and on the socials. In this sense, I learned what people are willing to answer and how much they can contribute orally compared to writing out answers.

Abbey told me that a graphic decision to improve this piece would be to remove my picture and make the Rotarian's picture bigger so that the audience is more clear on who the real subject is.

I had forgotten I'd even made this, but seeing it trend well on Saturday made me proud of myself. At least I can still get one thing right in a sea of wrongs.