Lois Mahaney created the VFJ database and Teacher Directory

A bit of TCC history

By Carmen Brocklehurst

Justin and I had the privilege of attending a special dinner and retirement party for Lois Mahaney in San Francisco. Lois helped lay a wonderful foundation for T’ai Chi Chih in the Bay Area (through her T’ai Chi Chih classes) and worldwide (through her efforts on the Vital Force). Lois also brought the T’ai Chi Chih Teacher’s Directory into manifestation with the help of her daughter Susan. This was done long after Lois was 70 years young — so much for sitting around eating bonbons and watching the soaps.

For anyone who has ever managed a sizeable database (we have over 1000 teachers worldwide), the idea of beginning a database is awesome enough without considering the perpetual daily changes. A person truly becomes aware of how mobile society is if she or he manages a database. Lois undertook this without knowing the capabilities of computers.

Since most of us learned about computers by trial and error, the words, “Oh no!” or “What did I do?” are heard more often than we would like to remember. During dinner Lois talked about some of the wild things that happened while learning how the computer worked. She recalled statements like “Oh my, what happened to all of the addresses in this column? They are gone.” Another was “Now that I have this information what can we do with it?” Lois created a map that pinpointed each city where we had a teacher and organized teacher lists by states and cities as well [as] alphabetically. Some might say, “Oh, that isn’t too hard on the computer.” However, you have to know how to do it, and that learning isn’t always an easy process. It takes time and patience — two things that seem to be in short supply today. But for over 15 years Lois has shown that her cup runneth over.

It was wonderful to see the love and respect everyone has for Lois — respect that is well deserved. Helping T’ai Chi Chih grow is a full-time job. Thank you, Lois, for helping with that task for so many years. We are all grateful.