We had a woman from the Health Center give a talk about STIs and pregnancy prevention. It was not only informative, but she knew how to keep the mood light for most of it, making the program entertaining enough for everyone to stay engaged. If you go to a large school, your health center probably has someone who does speaking engagements like this, so you might want to look into it.
It's important for risk management programs, if they involve someone outside the sorority, to be conducted by someone who is used to running this kind of program and knows how to give the information while keeping the group engaged. For example, we had a woman from the local sexual assault center come to speak. She was one of the therapists there, but it was clear that she was not used to speaking to large groups, and it was not a good result. She was awkward and quiet, kept repeating the same thing, and after about 20 minutes, most people were staring off into space, if not playing with their phones or talking to their neighbors. It wasn't because the subject matter wasn't important, but the person speaking was just...not very good at it, to say the least.
Try to find out programs that other sororities/fraternities in your area have done, and if you can have the same people or organization do a program for you.
For a fire safety program, maybe you could have a local fireman/firewoman (fireperson?) come to speak. A good-looking guy would probably keep most of the chapter interested, and a woman would also be pretty cool to hear speak, because, at least where I'm from, female firefighters aren't terribly common, so that would be a good role model to listen to. The same could be said for a police officer.
Another useful program my sorority has had (my high school did this too, both times were great) was having a defense attorney come in to speak about knowing your rights, especially regarding underage drinking, house parties, etc. Most college students do drink before age 21, and it's important to know what to do if you're ever stopped by a cop and you've been drinking, or if you're at a party with alcohol and a cop knocks on the door. So many underage students end up in trouble that they could have avoided, or at least reduced, because they didn't know their rights or how to handle a situation, and the last thing any sorority needs is having members arrested (and, if your school newspaper is like mine, having their name AND their Greek affiliation printed in the crime section of the newspaper. Yes, they have actually done this). A big portion of risk management is not just preventing risky behavior from happening, but preventing trouble/a bad reputation that can come after the risky behavior. A local attorney will probably be willing to do this because he/she can hand out business cards and get their firm's name out there in case anyone does end up in need of a lawyer.
|