Well, it is that time of year, and I can hardly believe it! This year has gone by so quickly; it seems like just yesterday that we attended fall retreat, and we were talking about NEXT fall retreat at chapter last night… Crazy!
I have definitely enjoyed this year, and made some awesome new friends! I love all of the Etas, especially my littles Mei Mei and Jennifer, and I am so thankful that they were able to enjoy OPA with me. 🙂 Banquet was great, and I think that it was the perfect way to finish up the year. Our sisterhood chair, Thi, did an amazing job with our fun-filled, Cinco de Mayo celebration. We did things a little bit differently this year in that we were allowed to bring guests. I brought two- my fiance, Troy, and our friend, Zack. (Troy is on the right in blue, and Zack is on the left in green.) 🙂
As a chpater, we have accomplished some amazing things this year! As of last night at our chapter meeting (and JB is still not completely done counting…) we have 2,675 service hours this semester!! For the whole year, we have 4,205 hours!!! That is SO amazing, and I am incredibly proud of everyone for all of their hard work. Many sisters received awards at banquet for “over 40 hours” and “over 50 hours.” I am proud of all of the girls who met our new 25 hour requirements, and impressed that so many doubled or almost doubled this requirement! Maybe we can raise our requirement to 30 hours per semester at fall retreat…. 😉
Over this year, I have seen our chapter grow, and I know that we are on our way to bigger and better things. We grew in number, but I also think we grew in friendship, leadership, and service. I know- corny… But I really think this is true! I thought that the chapter grew closer than it ever had during spring of last year, but I think that this spring has fostered even more frienship and sisterhood between the sisters. I can truly say that my sisters are some of my best friends!
At Banquet, I got awards for perfect attendance, over 50 service hours, and, most importantly, Miss OPA! 😀 I was so surprised and honored to be chosen for this award- it truly means the world to me! The other awards were given to Caroline, Miss Service and our future Service Director, Sydney, Miss Friendship, and Priscilla, Miss Leadership. Here we are:
Our chapter meeting last night, the last chapter of the semester, was also the time for our officer transition ceremony. I was happy that my grand-big, Liz, as well as other alums and our District TLC, Megan Johnson, could attend. This was a very special and memorable night for me because I was officially sworn in as the new Alpha Zeta President!!!!!!!!!! 😀 Tegan Y. even handed down our OPA presidential gavel- this proves I am important now. HAHA 😉
And in OPA fashion, we took TONS of pictures. 🙂 Here is the old EB and new EB together:
And the members of the new EB:
Service Director: Caroline, President: Teigan (ME!!), Sisterhood Chair: Tiffany, Secretary: Emily, Membership Director: Thi, Treasurer: Ann, and Vice President: Heather
These are some wonderful, amazing, and beautiful ladies. I absolutely cannot wait to serve on next year’s EB with them; it is truly and honor and a blessing to be chosen as next year’s president. Even though I feel like I have said it a thousand times, I will say it again… I want everyone to know that I am very excited for the new year and all of the great things to come. THANK YOU, sisters! I LOVE YOU!!
So far, we’ve made it through Fall retreat, rush, and our two bid days.
This was my first fall retreat, and I absolutely loved it. We went to a girl scout camp near Macon, GA, which was out in the middle of nowhere. Over the weekend, I felt that I was able to bond with my sisters- even some girls that I had not previously gotten to know. We played some games, braided some hair, and painted some nails, but mostly we spent our times in meetings- planning and voting on service projects that we will complete throughout the semester. We have some great projects this year, and I am really excited about all of them! 
Our theme for rush this year was “Peace, Love, and ΩΦΑ.” Most of my work went in pre-rush. As Marketing Director, I was in charge of the marketing committee for rush. Our duties included making and hanging fliers as well as chalking all over campus. (We were warned for chalking too close to the on campus housing, but it was cleaned up, and it will not happen again! I will be absolutely sure to follow all of the rules in the RSO handbook- now we know.) To advertise even further for rush, we created some little candy favors which included all of our information to hand out to students on Monday afternoon, the first day of rush. I also created a big banner which I hung up in the student center. (I found out that we are allowed to print 6 free banners per semester as a registered student organization, so I will definitely be taking advantage of that!)
Then it came to the actual event, a three night affair. The decorations committee and all of the families did a great job- everything was so cute! So many great girls came out to be part of our Eta pledge class- I can’t wait to get my little! 🙂
Handing out bids was so much fun! Christine, Dawn, and I were assigned four girls who all lived in Marietta, so it was very convenient. The girls were so excited!
Now that I am somewhat caught up on the semester, I can move on to the things I am doing now… While searching for other blogs about sorority life or something along those lines, I stumbled upon T.J. Sullivan, a motivational speaker who travels to campuses talking to college students about leadership. Here he is:
I especially liked the end of this video when T.J. talks about the attention that should be given to the middle third (the members who come to meetings and fulfill all of their requirements) of an organization. What he says in this section of the video is so true- in any given organization, all of the attention is divided between the top third (the leaders of the organization) and bottom third (the slackers in the organization). I agree with him when he says that the top third should stop paying so much attention to the bottom third, the people who do not want to come to meetings and events, and devote themselves to the middle third. If the leaders of the organization were to ask the middle third what they can do to make their experiences better, the organization would improve as a whole.
Nothin' Sweeter than ΩΦΑ 