Attending My First DAR Meeting

     Yesterday, I attended my first ever DAR meeting. If you remember from previous posts, I first met with the local DAR chapter's Registrar in December.  Between then and now they had a meeting (while I was on vacation in Colonial Williamsburg), in which I was voted in as a prospective member.

     The meeting was held in a ballroom at a senior living center.  There were 10 tables with eight chairs each and just about every chair was filled.  The crowd was a mix of women and a few men (who mostly seemed to be husbands) aged mostly from 80s to 40s, with some in their 30s and a few others in their high 20s.  At 29, I was certainly one of the youngest attendees, though not the absolute youngest.

     They had a member sign in sheet (which I wasn't sure if I was supposed to sign or not) and name tags, including blank ones for visitors.  As I was standing, looking around, the woman who had come in behind me started talking to me and we sat at a able together; she was a prospective member as well.

     The meeting started with a prayer, pledges to numerous flags, and some other things that I'm not quite sure what they were.  There was then an induction ceremony, where three applicants became members.  They also mentioned names of all of the prospective members, and there seemed to be somewhere around 25 women who were in the process of joining.

     Each meeting features a speaker, and this meeting was Jim Anderson, who spoke about Scottish Heritage and the Highland Games held each year in Stone Mountain Park.  It was quite informative and made me want to look into my Armstrong family and attend this year's Games.

     After the presentation there was a break for snacks, which was quite an impressive spread of finger sandwiches, fruits, veggies and desserts.  The meeting continued, touching on a number of topics specific to the chapter.  They will be hosting the state conference in March, and are looking for volunteers, nominated delegates to the conference, took up a collection for book donation to the National DAR Library, and other things.

     I was able to speak with the Registrar again, and she had me sign my application.  Boy was she in demand!  With 25 women in the process of joining she has to always be in the middle of something.  Both before and after the meeting, there always seemed to be one or two people waiting to speak with her.

     I picked up a good amount from this meeting about how this DAR chapter works, though I'm sure to learn more details at the New Member Workshop this Thursday.  For one thing, I'm curious about different committees.  I know that they have some for lineage and scrapbooking, but I get the feeling that there are a lot more.  The Registrar has already mentioned that I might want to join the lineage committee, based on the paperwork I supplied for my application.  I'm looking forward to Thursday and learning more about the DAR and this specific chapter.