Theta Zeta's Blog
Heyyyyy brothers!
So like Katie posted earlier today on this blog we attended serve together this week. To say the least it was a very eye opening and extremely beneficial weekend for both Katie and I. She already kind of gave a description below of the event I just am writing here to further explain the experience and share my group’s project a little more and what I learned.
When we arrived I had a very basic idea that they tell you at the end of the other APO Leads courses about how you use all the skills you’ve learned and plan a project. Well let me tell you that was just the tip of the iceberg. It was a long day of presentations, exercises, and small group sessions. My “chapter” was described as having 25-60 members in a rural state college with a budget of $1000+ and we had to create a fundraiser that would raise enough money for us to send voting delegates to the National Convention. At first our group was breezing through and our leadership styles were complementing one another. However as warned by our presenters the planning got more detailed we all got frustrated with one another and over the project. Once we went back and heard some more presentations about topics and some brain food we realized what we could do to overcome it and came together by compromising to complete the project. By the end we were all very proud of it and kind of thought we actually were about to have it.
Out of the whole weekend there were two key points I took away from this weekend. The first was that when working with different leadership styles and others not with the same experience you must set goals and work towards one common thing. As many people I spoke to this weekend said it was much easier to plan when we had a concrete thing to accomplish because everything we did was related to it. Lastly one of the last things the main presenter Howie said was something that resonated with me in my everyday life and I think probably many other brothers as well…..Failure is a good thing and okay. This gave me food for thought as I left the weekend knowing that even if we do fail its always a learning experience and about getting back up.
Serve was an experience that I’m
sure both Katie and I can highly recommend. It is a weekend where you truly
learn a lot about yourself. It was my fourth APO L.E.A.D.S course but this one
is extremely different than the rest. On top of that you meet so many brothers
and make friends that you will want to stay in contact with. I encourage all
brothers if you haven’t already to take Launch and start or continue your APO
Leads journey because it is something extremely valuable you can use in your
everyday life. Personally I have done 4 out of the 5 courses and I learn so
much from each one every time and my goal before I leave this chapter in May
is to graduate an APO L.E.A.D.S all-star` which means I will have completed all
5 courses. I hope many other of you younger and newer brothers will take these opportunities as well and older brothers who have done many will continue as well.
Hope everyone is enjoying summer!
L,F,S
Colleen Kelly
"Brother Snow"
