Deep in my Heart: Part three

Day Four

Fiscally Fit with the Foundation

Early on Saturday brought financial advice from an Alpha Gamma, Mizzou, alumna Glenda Johnson Kemple who works in Texas.  She offered great suggestions on financial planning for members of all ages.  She even spoke directly to recent college graduates and said it is important to build up savings, have an emergency fund in place, put a lot into retirement funds, and then invest from there!

Ritual Review

At Grand Convention select women are chosen to become Alumnae Initiates through an initiation performed by Grand Council right before the attendees. This initiation and the Q&A to follow serves as the ritual review for the Chapter Presidents and other attendees.  It was a wonderful review personally for my year of travel and reminded me to brush up on my own ritual know how.

The rest of the day brought two breakout sessions before lunch for which I attended Not the Recruitment you Remember! - Release Figure Methodology a breakout session on the basics of RFM and then Insurance and Risk Management for House Corporations Officers.  Both were very interesting to me because I didn't know a terrible lot about either. 

Finally, for lunch was our Panhellenic Luncheon with guest speaker Jean Mrasek, incoming National Panhellenic Conference (NPC) Chairman.  She was a well-poised and engaging speaker who threw what she knew and even quoted Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg (I may or may not have woo'd when she did).  She also enlightened us that one of our earlier members was an Adelphean as well as a Chi Omega (her home sorority).  This of course was when a woman could join two such organizations. 

Ms. Mrasek then joined us for our panel on Higher Education and Greek Life along with other women working in this field including the National Pan-Hellenic Conference President, Jennifer Jones. Naturally, I loved every second and took notes! Some of my favorite answers include:

What are challenging situations facing Greek Life?

• Mental Health- How to make women advocates of themselves
• Access to Higher Education- due to a rise in costs and lack of resources
• Sexual Assault Culture- within and outside of the sorority
• Help student develop more critical thinking skills

One idea of what we can do to improve our image?

• We don't toot our own horn- Our Fraternity and Sorority Advisor (FSA) as well as schools want to celebrate with us
• Work with other organizations to host an event and expose members to new experiences
• Women need to help Women- think of our other sororities as our go-to place to get support
• Engage the whole community in group brainstorms

After lunch I attended the last breakout session available for all attendees and chose to attend Panhellenic Mediation after talking with one of the consultant gals, Kashia!  At first I wasn't so certain but soon decided I loved this session after another consultant, Caroline, got to play tug-of-war! 

More Training

Before jet setting off to get ready for dinner the incoming consultants attended a training with the TME (Total Membership Education) Directors for each district regarding the pilot program for Alphas (new members). Luckily, Gamma Nu was one of the few chapters chosen to participate last semester so I had a fairly good understanding of the program. I'm excited to work with the next set of chapters chosen to pilot during the next year!

Awards Banquet

The last dinner of Grand Convention is the awards banquet where the recipients of the coveted Golden Lion are formally announced and all the attendees dress in formal gowns.  This night is a special night because all attendees are given a pen light and stand when their chapter name is called to light up their light.  After, we congregated in the main foyer to sing ADPi traditional songs. 

Incoming consultants throwin' diamonds with International President, Tammie Pinkston!
Photo courtesy of Caroline.

Violet Reveal

Sunday morning the incoming and outgoing consultants met up for an early breakfast to hang out one last time before the incoming consultants left.  It was a great meal with lots of coffee (thank goodness!) and laughs.  Towards the end of the meal an outgoing consultant gave all the new consultants a letter from her Violet Sister which is an older consultant to answer questions and help guide us through the next year.  I was so pleased to learn that my Violet Sister is Miss Ashley Luizzo and she is the sweetest woman you will ever meet!

Violets with their Violets!  Ashley and I are over to the right!
Photo courtesy of Mary Simeoli.

ADPi- Heart to Heart

Last session was the General Information Session where the Pi Portal was introduced to attendees.  Pi Portal is a blessing for Chapter Presidents and Executive Vice Presidents!  I'm excited to see this resource implemented in our chapters when it's rolled out at District Leadership Conference in 2014.  Additionally, there will be more focus on the International Officer expectations as well as expansion.  We are exceedingly getting better at expansion presentations and over the next year we will be colonizing at two schools (West Chester University and University of Pennslyvania) and recolonizing at two other schools (Tulane University and Ole Miss).

Well that's about it my blogger friends!  I hope you enjoyed the update from convention and my super long posts!  I promise more photos over the course of the year.