Updates from Danielle Swartz

Middle States Region

Hello everybody!

I have to say this semester has been absolutely crazy! We've been having a great time traveling and connecting with Phi Theta Kappans across the country. Each of us were assigned to two different regional meetings for the fall semester. My assignments included the New York Region Leadership Conference and New Jersey's Honors in Action Conference.

"Dear Santa..."

New York's Regional meeting spanned from Friday October 7th - Sunday October 9th - beginning with dinner on Friday night. The conference was a lot of fun and consisted of various phenomenal speakers including an author and distinguished alumni and a volunteer from Make a Wish Foundation. One of the Region's projects is with the foundation and requires students to do nothing more than write a letter to Santa for Macy's to donate up to $1 million! If attendees weren't convinced to help just by hearing how easy it was, the keynote speaker's moving words certainly would have.

Some of New York's Regional Officers

The bulk of Saturday was spent in various workshops - one of which I had the opportunity to work with past International President, Edgar Romero, on which was a lot of fun for me - and some exploring of the city.
The wrap up on Sunday gave participants a chance to reflect on their experiences at the conference and hear about the ambitious goals set by the Regional Officer team. For more information about the conference, feel free to visit my personal blog or New York's Regional Website.

New Jersey (Middle States Region)

The following weekend I was assigned to visit New Jersey for their Honors in Action Conference. Unfortunately, I didn't actually get to attend that much of it due to what felt like everything possible going wrong. After a delayed flight, a changed flight, and a missed flight, I didn't actually end up in New Jersey until about 1:00pm on Saturday (for a conference that was supposed to go from 8:30-4:00pm). I had a small window of opportunity, however, to meet with some extremely motivated individuals.

Once I arrived at the conference, I gave the Headquarters update and met many of the conference attendees. I couldn't believe how excited they were that I was there and how many projects they had going on! I got to hear about some successful signing events and projects being planned for the year ahead. The Middle States Region has designed a "Constellation Completion Challenge" - a step by step program to help the Region meet its three main goals. This is clearly a very motivated region and I am excited to see them again in the spring! After going out to dinner with Regional officers at the end of the conference, I went to bed early in preparation for more airports. Despite the challenges, I had a great time with the New Jersey Region. For more information about the Middle States Region, visit their Regional Website.

For those of you who are new to the blog, please be sure to go back and read (especially the earliest ones) for more information about the International Officer team's goals related to communication. Also, we have our second IO hosted Ning chat on Tuesday November 15 where we will be divulging more information about the scholarship (if you have no idea what I am talking about, contact me or your Division Vice President)! This is a chat that you do not want to miss. :-)

That's all for now! Kappa Hugs!!!