On the Road to NGLA

And so we are off. This year I have the honor to be one of 13 students chosen to represent Bridgewater State University at the Northeastern Greek Leadership Association (NGLA) conference. This is an incredible opportunity that I am both excited and a little nervous for. For those unfamiliar with the conference, here is the sparknotes version of the schedule I have ahead of me. It is currently 1:50pm on Thursday the 17^th (just in case I don’t have a chance to post this till who knows when because for some reason school vans are not equipped with wiifii haha) and we left at 1:30, give or take after an intense game of minivan tetris (Im going to take up a point for this kid for taking the initiative and just jumping into a corner seat up front. Maybe I should get two points, one for a more comfy seat then others got, and another point for not having to fight with the crowd haha sorry fellow greeks you snooze you lose :D). anyway looks like we have a two hour drive ahead of us and then we have a welcome reception and massive ice breaker games, then two jam packed days of intense leadership and greek life centered development workshops.

I think im nervous because of the amount of information out there to be absorbed. I really believe that there will be some incredible new ideas that I will be able to bring back to my chapter and continue to make positive changes. Last night we had a pledge/new member, which ever you prefer, event in which we introduced our pledges to their bigs. I had the great opportunity to talk with a number of the pledges and I have to say I am very excited about the potential we have to harness and use to really make great strides with our organization. I also received a new little, which after our 20nugget feast at mcdonalds following the event I am supper excited about, he is a really great kid and I think he has a great future ahead of him. So needless to say the potential is there so long as I have the tools to take advantage of it before they fall into poor habits or influences. So with that said I really need to add some new weapons to my leadership utility belt.

As far as the other delegates I am really excited to see a variety of members from 5 of our 8 chapters. All of who are coming from a variety of different leadership experiences within their own chapters as well as on campus. There are two other fellow chapter presidents aside from myself, panhellenics president, IFC and panhellenic officers, various chapter officers and some have no positions at all, some are brand new others are seasoned veteran’s. I think we have a great group representing our community so im excited to see all the great stuff we come back with.

Well to put this first post to bed im going to say that if you’re an undergrad reading this right now, I highly recommend applying to every opportunity there is to take a trip with fellow student leaders to any kind of conference or retreat you can. There is obviously the learning aspect, which is vital, but there is also the road trip and bonding session with your fellow leaders. There is nothing better then the experience of making new friends and memories with fellow students, some of which I had never really talked to prior to this trip. I cant wait to get to Hartford because I have a feeling this will be an experience I will never forget.

So with that said im logging off for now. More on the NGLA trip to come stay tuned and if you want more up to the minute details of the trip follow us on twitter at hash tag #NGLA11 #bsugreeklife and/or just stalk my tweets or any of the other delegates twitter :D

Chris Espinoza