Day two of NGLA started with me waking up at 8:11am. Everyone left the hotel to get breakfast at 8:10am. This is my life. I guess in hindsight it was nice to take my time waking up, but my stomach hated me all morning since I did not get the chance to eat until our lunch session at 12:15pm. To be honest the lunch line was way too long and the food was not ideal which led to a very hangry Amelia.
The first session of the day was entitled, "The Apathy Myth"and was presented by a speaker by the name of T.J. Sullivan. If you read my blog yesterday you know that I have an unhealthy obsession with T.J. Just last week I came home from a Leadership Conference that was directed toward my sorority, Phi Sigma Sigma, and T.J. lead a session called "Motivating the Middle". Coming into this session I had high hopes since my experience last weekend was so amazing. To start off the session, T.J. spoke about a close friend of his that used to work for an advertising agency. His agency was specifically aimed at advertising to young adults aged 18-25. T.J. explained that there are five things that agencies use to get a young adult to buy their product. Any combination of the five is proven to be successful. These five things are: money, food, fun, sex, and alcohol. Adding just five more things that T.J. came up with including: competition, friends, cool experiences, guilt/duty, and a penalty, he says that you can help advertise your chapter to your members just as an agency advertises products to the general public. If you used the ten items stated above and applied them to an specific events, you can see why some events tend to be more exciting than others. For example, if you were to talk about a spring break trip to Cancun you could apply, money (free giveaways), food (free food), fun, sex (limited clothing), alcohol, competition (games), friends, and cool experiences. Whereas if you talked about a chapter meeting you could apply, a feeling of guilt/duty, or penalties for not attending. No wonder we cannot motivate members to want to sit through a meeting every week. When we use the positive points to motivate our members, we see a more positive result.
T.J. also told a story about a chapter that he advises for and their community service chair. The community service chair was upset because he could not get brothers actively engaged in the volunteer work at the boys and girls club. T.J. gave him the advice to celebrate those who show up and stop stressing about those who don't. Successfully getting a few members to be actively involved in an event is more important than making the event mandatory and having disengaged members attend and not make a positive impact. Once you celebrate those members who show up, you can have them share their stories of the amazing things they got out of their service opportunities, in turn motivating their peers to get involved too.
One of the most influential things that T.J. taught me in this session was how to lead my chapter. He explained that leaders stress attendance too much. Attendance cannot be seen as validation for a leader. Just because you successfully got your whole chapter to show up to an event does not mean that the whole chapter is engaged and positively contributing. He also explained that as a leader in an organization, you are not running the NASA space station, and it should not be a complicated process, Treat your members with respect and make them feel included. If they walk into chapter and the executive board is sitting up front stern faced, members get the feeling that this is the executive boards meeting and that they just need to show up and listen to what they have to say. That should never be the case. Don't drive your members away, and maybe they will recommit and involve themselves.
Although I attended two other sessions today, neither compared to the hour I had with T.J. Sullivan. To end an amazing first day of sessions, the BSU delegation went out to dinner and I witnessed two friends inhale a rather large cheeseburger in under five minutes flat (slightly impressed, slightly grossed out). We then walked to the store to purchase snacks for our pajama party. On the way there we may have took too many videos of us all running around giving piggy back rides and dancing down the street. The one thing I have learned so far is that there is never a dull moment when you're exploring the city with friends. To finish out the night the whole delegation (besides Nick who fell asleep) crammed into one hotel room and ate snacks and played Heads Up. Did we receive a noise complaint from a security officer? Yes. Was it worth it to see MB fall on the floor laughing at Kyle? Yes it was.
NGLA day three I am so ready for you!
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