CLA - Charlotte:Post 2

Note: The second half of our "stringer's" post. It was long enough that a split was in order.

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The Officer Training sessions followed for most of the day. The Volunteer Sessions, in particular, received rave reviews on usefulness and sheer amount of information. If more volunteer training was done on that level then Grand President Yeatts would be able to count his volunteer initiative as accomplished.

The rest of the day went by with fairly little incident. The Renaissance of Brotherhood occurred that evening. While I cannot comment on specifics (for obvious reasons), I can say that it was one of the best Rituals seen at a National event.

The Awards Dinner was the final event of the evening. The dinner went by rather soberly. National Board Member Rick Bennet gave the keynote speech at which point most undergrads became bored and suddenly found plenty of more interesting toys to play with in the various accoutrements of the formal meal. The speech really was quite good, it was just a lot at the end of a long weekend. Awards were given out soon after. As usual, most chapters were overlooked in favor of the select few “golden boys.” It seemed that a few chapters won all the awards. I would hate to diminish the great work done by those chapters but it seemed like an awfully political set of awards. The disappointing portion of the evening was when one of the “golden boy” chapters simply got up and left in the middle of the dinner. Apparently, once they received their award they had something urgent to attend to.

With the substance-free event over the brothers hit the town with a vengeance. Brothers flooded into the city of Charlotte to see what sort of night life they could find. Judging by the revelry that lasted long into the morning, they were not disappointed. The major attraction in the city of Charlotte was the “Pita Pit.” I personally made the trip to the Pit three times in two nights for those delectable meat stuffed flat bread. There is nothing better than a fresh pita wrap at 4 in the morning.

Overall, the event was a huge success. Everyone, with the exception of the almost, at times, frantic hq staff, seemed relaxed and in good spirits. Undergraduates and Volunteers alike walked away with some serious information and “best practices” to take back to their chapters. Hopefully, these chapters will begin making some waves in their particular regions and some more good news coverage will come as a result of the things they learned in Charlotte.