Almost the end of an era

krisjensen asked me nicely in November or December 2004 if I'd be willing to be on the Albuquerque Square Dance Club board of nine. I must have been in a particularly beneficient mood and said 'yes.' I mean how hard could it be? So in early February, 2005, I started my journey into being a volunteer bookkeeper for what turned out to be a fairly busy enterprise with lots of issues. I picked up the books from the retiring treasurer (no accounting experience) somewhere around 3 years ago and zoomed home to start the process with enthusiasm.

Within a week or two of taking over the books, I got a pretty serious flu bug that kept me off of work for a full week. I took that time in between delirium and fevers to work on the QuickBooks 2000, massaging them until they were what I could work with, and totally understood what was going on.

Many, many board meetings, and maybe $120,000 in deposits later, I'm about to turn over the books to another board member, someone who agreed to do this with sincere reservations, not having any real bookkeeping background.. It wasn't so much the keeping up with the accounting that was time consuming, it was adding the membership organization to the mix that made it quirky. I wish Sheri well.

I'll be heading over to her house in about 15 minutes to install Quickbooks 2005 on her computer, train her in how the system is working, upload the books, spreadsheets, and treasurer's report onto her computer, then fly away.

Sort of.

I promised I'd work the books through the Marshall Flippo anniversary dance this weekend.

I'm sure I'll find something fun to fill the 4-5 hours a week I spent on the books! But it was a good cause, and I'm happy I did it.

Almost the end of an era

krisjensen asked me nicely in November or December 2004 if I'd be willing to be on the Albuquerque Square Dance Club board of nine. I must have been in a particularly beneficient mood and said 'yes.' I mean how hard could it be? So in early February, 2005, I started my journey into being a volunteer bookkeeper for what turned out to be a fairly busy enterprise with lots of issues. I picked up the books from the retiring treasurer (no accounting experience) somewhere around 3 years ago and zoomed home to start the process with enthusiasm.

Within a week or two of taking over the books, I got a pretty serious flu bug that kept me off of work for a full week. I took that time in between delirium and fevers to work on the QuickBooks 2000, massaging them until they were what I could work with, and totally understood what was going on.

Many, many board meetings, and maybe $120,000 in deposits later, I'm about to turn over the books to another board member, someone who agreed to do this with sincere reservations, not having any real bookkeeping background.. It wasn't so much the keeping up with the accounting that was time consuming, it was adding the membership organization to the mix that made it quirky. I wish Sheri well.

I'll be heading over to her house in about 15 minutes to install Quickbooks 2005 on her computer, train her in how the system is working, upload the books, spreadsheets, and treasurer's report onto her computer, then fly away.

Sort of.

I promised I'd work the books through the Marshall Flippo anniversary dance this weekend.

I'm sure I'll find something fun to fill the 4-5 hours a week I spent on the books! But it was a good cause, and I'm happy I did it.