Big Soc Dilemmas Part 2: Never too late?

My friend Paula and I have been doing the local Friends of the Earth newsletter this week, including one of our periodic attempts to update the mailing list. Despite never having met many of the people on the list, who are sometimes only linked to us by something very casual such as having once clicked on a cyberbutton, we are very reluctant to give up on any of them. There's always the chance that this issue will prompt them into popping into a meeting one first Tuesday of the month, and that they will turn out to be a green-caped superhero who will rescue us from niggling in our obscure suburban backwater and drag us onto the homepage of the Huffington Post.

Sometimes we suggest to Joanna, the membership secretary, that we should ask them all to a party and just see what happens. But Joanna has been in the group a lot longer than us and she shakes her head wisely as we call out the names. "Housebound", "Bonkers" and even "very likely to be deceased despite still paying subs by standing order" are common Joanna explanations for their non-availability for green duties. Other times we have a fleeting memory of them: "That was the French woman who left her gloves behind....the angry angler ...the woman that was obsessed with curing world hunger through growing a particular type of bean". Often, in my case, I have just grown attached to their name and can't bear the thought that I will never again run my eye down a list and see "Eloise Rear, Constancia Knatchbull, Arachne von Hoffschlot, Tristan Glitch".

Thus, though we fear in our heart of hearts that they will never come to join our little corner of the Big Soc., we very rarely strike them out. After all, perhaps they are Bigger than us and are busy at the UN or building a windfarm in the North Sea.

And occasionally miracles happen: Susan and Janine both came to join our soriety (for we are rather a female cell) following very many years as silent recipients. Susan proofreads our outpourings with ferocity as befits a retired English teacher: perhaps she couldn't stand their misplaced capital letters and acronyms any longer. Janine was no sooner out of her important job in the City than we had her in the nylon cow suit shaking hands with the Mayor to advertise the iniquities of genetically modified soya.

So I conclude that it's never too late to become a Big Soc-er. Sometimes just the fleeting memory or idea or name of yourself will be busy inspiring someone like me somewhere, but it's much better to come out and moo.