Prime-Time Events: RIMS Serving San Diego

Big props to RIMS and Aon for setting up the 2008 Community Service Day again. This year, two busloads of volunteers descended upon an elementary school about 10 minutes away from the convention center ... 10 minutes across to the other side of the tracks. Staff from Volunteer San Diego and volunteers from a local landscaping company were there to direct all us risk folks.

And direct us they did. We put in a new Zen garden behind the school, built and painted gardening benches, and otherwise tidied up a little, but important, nook of the city. It was good. You land at the airport and see billboards at the baggage claim for RIMS sponsors. You see the RIMS banners hanging from lightposts as you drive from hotel, to convention, to restaurants and back.

So the monetary effect of thousands of conventioneers is obvious and welcome. But to get your hands dirty, as all the volunteers did today at the RIMS 2008 Community Service Day, and then, at the end of the 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. shift, see the results of your labor ... it's great to have that impact as well. When the principal of the school made a surprise appearance to check out our work, she cried. We aren't that great at gardening ... it was the effort, the humanity, that did it.

Plus, it's fun to see brokers, salespeople, vice presidents of risk managers, former CEOs, entreprenuers, risk and insurance students, etc. all wearing T-shirts and having fun in the dirt. Of course, some business talk could be heard when somebody who had something to sell could corner someone who had something to buy.

But for the most part, this was hard work being done by RIMS finest representatives. Now after filling 40 wheelbarrows of pulverized stone and digging trenches, I am going to put my feet up and relax for the next few days. It's not like I won't have to be on my feet for the next week ... 18 hours a day. Nah!