Retreat Ideas
 

Hi all,
Our MRC has left us (for reasons I won't discuss,) so the position has been taken over by me and cara (glitter650). I have been completely stressed out about winter retreat. It has, of course, been left to the last minute and I am determined to start the semester off with a bang. Usually we just hold a completely boring retreat at someone's parents house close by. This year I am doing my best to get us a cabin in Napa for the weekend. All that remains is the sending of the check.

I was wondering what other chapters do for retreats, spring and fall. We have gone camping before fall semester, which is fun and cheap. What others ideas have worked.

Suzanne
Delta Gamma chapter

My chapter just had their retreat yesterday. In the fall we went camping for our retreat and it didnt go over well. Yesterday it was held at our Archon's house. It went over very well. My chapter archon is PhiSigFly, she comes on here sometimes. She may have some suggestions.

We had our retreat at my parent's house (slightly boring location, but its all good), as Nicole just said. I think the BEST thing you can do to plan it is to e-mail your chapter and see what THEY are interested in learning about. For instance, in my chapter, I would overhear sisters saying completely crazy things about J-Board (i.e you can't get called to j-board if you never show up to anything because, if you're not there, you can not be given the letter). So, e-board took a couple of minutes out of our retreat (which is always the night before the chapter retreat) and planned a short and funny skit about 3 sisters being called to j-board, what goes on in j-board, different things you can get called in for (one sister was there for attendance, one for inappropriate dress at a meeting, and one for getting drunk in letters at a party). Sisters in the chapter had also e-mailed me about wanting to talk about COB and things like that.
At a retreat, you should always do calender planning and goal setting, that way the entire chapter has a say in the calender- so semester attendance should be high if the chapter as a whole set up the events. An important part of running a retreat is making sure there is a balance of fun and work. If you're going to do goal setting, maybe there should be a fun ice breaker either directly before or directly after.
I really don't know what kind of advice you want. I hope that helped a little bit! Use the retreat as a time to discuss last semester. Ask people what they liked, didn't like, would want to change, etc and focus the retreat on setting goals to solve any issues that you guys are having.

"I would overhear sisters saying completely crazy things about J-Board (i.e you can't get called to j-board if you never show up to anything because, if you're not there, you can not be given the letter)."

yeah, that is bogus..... but I do like the way you took it upon yourselves to make it educational.

I would suggest this about calendar planning - Have all committee heads give their dates to the Vice Archon. The Archon, VA & Advisors should make a preliminary calendar first, and then the exec board will have their 2 cents. If you get the whole chapter involved @ once, it will take hours & trust me that happened in the past. ;)

Retreat is also a great time to get new ideas from your new members that went through recruitment. :)

We used to go away for our retreats but found that to be expensive, so now we have it at the house. I think it is a great time to come up with chapter goals and talk over issues within the chapter.

THe house isn't exciting either, but it is nice because everyone can still go to their own beds, and we can at least have a break