Room for flexibility required

Today I was the Master of Ceremony (MC) for an event at the work place. No worries for me. No butterflies in my stomach and what not. This is my second time being the MC for the event. So it was definitely better than the first time round...

Overall it went well. I was on top of the flow of things i.e. the schedule of the event, preparation of the emcee script, how to conduct myself, etc. There were minor glitches to which brought me to the point of my posting today.

In my script, I planned every detail including detailing who will be receiving the awards, in which order, etc.I even printed out in bigger fonts and one-sided pages to ease my reference when standing out there in the crowd. It was half an hour before the event I was informed that one of the recipients will not be attending. So of course naturally I just blacked out the recipient's name (truly took my pen and started crossing wildly on the recipient's name so that I won't mistakenly mention the person's name) from my list. 10 minutes before the event, it was then communicated that the person will NOW be attending the ceremony. Okaaaayyyyy...the problem is that I've totally inked the recipient's name out from the list. I was afraid of the risk that when standing up in front of the podium and going through the motion, I'd missed calling out the recipient's name. Well, that did happen despite me ticking next to the recipient's name. Ayoyoooo...Oh well, lalalaa, apologise, move on and don't stop.

Looking back, I should have left room to accommodate such changes during the event. Also, to better manage any new information given at the last minute and DURING the event. I was striving to be such a perfectionist that I was not flexible. Lesson learnt and for those who wish to emcee or will be one in the near future, take heed to my point today.

Either way, I had an enjoyable time doing it and would love to MC again! 

p.s. For those who were curious on how I could be appointed as MC despite walking around in the office with a stick and in my Ipanema slippers to boot, well, today was THE first day I actually wore shoes again (flats of course), JUST for today's event. My walking stick? I hid it behind a wall and just walked without it in that short distance within the hall.