The Culturally Conscious Board

3 On and Off the Table

It always disturbed me how many biographers never gave their subjects a chance to eat. You can tell a lot about people by how they eat, what they eat, and what kind of table manners they have.

DAVID MCCULLOUGH8

Crystal knew volunteering. She knew Baker Park (at least she did when she was a kid growing up there). But the growing sensation in the pit of her stomach after her first board meeting left her with the question, What did it mean to be on a board?

She kept reminding herself to give herself some grace. This was her first tentative step into an unfamiliar world, one with rituals, customs and speech different from her workplace meetings, book club and pickup basketball league. Luckily, tonight she realized she knew ...