PEBCAC

The very last thing I have to do as PCC secretary in our church before I hand over with wild joy and exhilaration is produce the huge meeting document for the APCM (Annual Parochial Church Meeting).  This extensive piece of paperwork contains reports from all aspects of church life.  Because of the length of time it takes to get them in, format them, collate them, and print them off, all in time to be available a fortnight before the meeting, I have to start sending out reminders in January to people who every year have to send in their reports at this time but do nothing unless reminded.

Some people, even if reminded, ignore the deadline which was the last day of February this year. 

So I had a phone call this morning.

Caller:  “I haven’t had a reminder to send in my report for the APCM.”

Me: “I have sent you two reminders.”

Caller: “Oh?  Well, I haven’t received them.”

Me: “The deadline was last Friday but as I am still waiting for some people whose reports are in late, I can still add yours in if you send it in today.  Do you still have my email address?”

Caller: “No.”

Me: “Do you have a pen and paper to hand?  Yes?  Well, here it is.  Okay, I’ll say it for you first, then spell it for you, then say it again to check you’ve got it.  Are you ready?  Here we go.” 

[I spell it out with lots of s-for-sugar, b-for-bertie, m-for-mother etc to make sure my friend cannot possibly get it wrong, then read it back to check it has been correctly transcribed and make them affirm that it has.]

Me: “Okay, well if you send it in today I can include it.  But I did send two reminders to the address I had last year.”

Caller: “Oh, well I have changed my email address.”

Right. That’ll be the problem, then.  No wonder you didn’t receive my emails. 

It is Lent, so I will express no opinion about this conversation.