3 May 2016
Last night I dreamt I was chairing a Council meeting. This is enough to bring anyone out in a cold sweat. Of all the duties I have undertaken as President, chairing Council meetings has been the most challenging. I can stand up in front of a hall full of people and address them without notes, even on topics for which my enthusiasm outweighs my expertise by quite some margin. I can talk confidently with important heads of pan-global organisations, even if they don’t remember afterwards who I am. I can find my way to places I’ve never been, make friends with people I’ve never met, launch projects with audacity and breathe encouragement into barren committee landscapes where others fear to tread. I can cope with Mr Davies’s swearing and I can match his mad ideas one-for-one. I can discuss Learning Outcomes with Ms Sear, shout with Mr Lampert, sigh with Unlucky Gary. I am even brave enough to open the CIPA fridge. But trying to get 26 Council members to stick to an agenda, and to make sensible decisions about it, has never ceased to scare the underwear off me. So in my dream, I sat in CIPA Hall without my underwear, ceremonial gavel in trembling hand, and awaited my doom. I had forgotten to tell the others that it was a fancy dress Council meeting. But they knew anyway. And the reason they knew is that I was dressed as a Biscuit Pixie. I had made the costume myself, out of biscuits and parcel tape and an old kagoul. If you have traditionally thought of pixies as petite creatures, lightweight and fleet of foot, then you would probably not think I looked very pixie-like. But it was the best I could do on account of being too scared to sleep the night before. And the night before that. Other Council members kept stealing the biscuits off my costume. There were garibaldis and custard creams, chocolate chip-on-the-shoulder cookies, namby-pamby pink wafer biscuits, extremely rich teas, Viennese fingers for Boards of Appeal, and even low-fat shortbread with no added subject matter. But I wasn’t allowed to eat them myself because Mr Davies didn’t want me to get crumbs in the minutes. The VeePee said I’d made my costume too detailed. The Internal Governance Committee said I’d made it without permission. Mr Davies said it looked like I’d made it with my eyes shut. Someone else shouted that I should go dunk myself. I ended up quivering under the table, surrounded by chocolate chips and parcel tape. I was the first ever Council Chair to announce herself as an Apology for Absence. And also as an Apology for a President. The worse thing about this dream is that tomorrow, I really do have to chair a Council meeting. It will be the last I do as President. And even if I don’t go dressed as a Biscuit Pixie, I expect that as usual, once I start trying to exert my authority, it will be little better than pantomime. “This is a good proposal,” I will say. And the others will shout “OH NO IT ISN’T!” I may as well arrive with a custard pie in my face. Except that that would seem an awful waste of custard pie.
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