I can now understand how volunteering can easily take up a lot of your time if you want it to. First I joined the PPO to help organize school events, and obviously it’s hoped that you’ll be able to volunteer for some of those events as well. I haven’t yet but I’m going to be helping out at the movie night coming up later this month.

Then I joined the Governing Board which is less about volunteering and more about making important decisions about the school itself, but it still requires at least one meeting a month (more if an urgent situation comes up).

Earlier this month I volunteered to go as a helper for the class trip to see a play, even though it wasn’t even Hayley’s actual class but rather the other grade two class.

At the last PPO meeting the principal mentioned the assembly for Remembrance Day where a couple of war veterans would attend and the classes all do some sort of presentation (song, poem, etc). I immediately asked if she’d like me to come and photograph it so they could use the pictures around the school and on the website.

The assembly ended up being today since the veterans couldn’t attend yesterday (Hayley was so cute, she told me that they had to postpone it because the veterinarians couldn’t make it!), so at 10 am I headed out with my camera bag, my flash, and all my lenses. I sometimes feel like a bit of a dork when other people have simple point and shoots and then there I am with a camera bag bigger than my head*. It was fun though!

Thing wrapped up in about an hour so the kids could go to lunch but I hung out in the office for a bit with some of the other PPO folks, chatting and laughing. The secretary was preparing posters for the upcoming book fair; it’s held all day for the students and then it’s open again that evening during Parent-Teacher night in case any parents want to buy books. And the “I love this volunteering thing!” kicked in and I asked her if she needed volunteers – that was met with an emphatic YES PLEASE. I can’t do it during the evening since I want to see all of Hayley’s teachers (she has three main teachers this year – French, Math, English) so I’ll be too busy but I could go for at least half the day to help out.

It’s addictive. I could very easily get carried away with it. In fact I might volunteer for pizza day this month. It’s as though once I’m in the school I want to just jump right in and do everything I possibly can to help out. The thing is, once Breanna’s in school too I’ll be able to spend even more time there since I won’t have to worry about George’s schedule then.

In the meantime I’m doing the best I can and I’m so glad I pushed myself this year, got myself out of my comfort zone instead of letting my panic attacks stop me, and just got started. I wish I had done more of this the first two years, but I’m making up for lost time now!

*Although, is it just me or do SLR users always seek each other out? A man was there with a Nikon D40X and I immediately started trying to check the camera out discreetly from a distance. I changed my lens a few times and wondered what he was using since he didn’t. Apparently he was eying mine as well because after it was over we just kind of walked up to each other and he asked me what my big lens was. I told him it was the 70-300mm and asked about his, which ended up being a 35-70mm. We both expressed some envy over the other’s lens, then carried on about our business. That happens a lot, it’s like we photographers are part of some secret club!