This is a true story. It was brought to mind when my (all female) golf league, CWGI, listed for sale recently. It’s a great league and I hope the new owner will grow and develop it as much as the current owner has done over the past decade. The thing is, leading and /or belonging to an all-female organization can be interesting. I say this based on my experience and assessment but hey, I am not a man and men may feel there are unique qualities, shall we say, about all-male organizations.
And the story? It was around 1980. We are long time Saskatchewan residents and were living in Regina. I was in business and a friend invited me to a meeting of the Regina Business Women’s Network. Great, I thought, this will be a wonderful opportunity to meet others, make new friends and to learn from each other. I’ll go to this meeting and see how things work and if it is a good fit, I’ll join the Network.
The guest speaker at the evening meeting was Roy Romanow. At the time Mr. Romanow was an elected member of the Saskatchewan provincial legislature and he was working on patriation of the Canadian constitution. This from Wikipedia “During the 1981 discussions over patriation of the Canadian constitution, Attorney-General of Ontario Roy McMurtry, Chrétien and Romanow worked out the final details of Canada’s new constitution, resulting in the famous late-night Kitchen “Accord. Romanow objected strongly to any protections on private property in the new Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and none were included.” This was very high profile and important for our country. I was very impressed that as busy as Mr. Romanow would have been at the time that he came to speak to a group of business people in Regina mid-week on a cold early winter evening.
The business meeting was still in progress when Mr. Romanow and his assistant quietly slipped into the room and patiently sat at the back waiting to be introduced. People were aware he was there as the meeting continued. The final item on the business agenda was the Christmas gathering, the President reviewed the date and time. At that point a woman asked for the floor and proceeded to make an impassioned plea for gravy placement at the upcoming dinner. You see, last year the gravy was put on top of the potatoes and there was too much gravy. This year, she said, please ask the restaurant to serve the gravy on the side.
Roy Romanow is waiting at the back of the room to tell us the patriation of our country’s constitution and the subject just before he speaks is about serving gravy on the side.
I’ll leave it to your imagination as to whether I joined the Network.
Barb's True Stories 
Groan. And before anyone says anything about “women”, I can calmly assure you that it could as easily have happened in an all-male or a mixed crowd. As you know from budgets, people will quibble over small items they can understand and pass huge items without a debate because they cannot wrap their minds around them.
You are right. In those discussions you hope someone will be the voice of reason and bring the group back to what’s important. Thanks for bringing better balance to the observation.