Convention is awesome! I'm so thrilled that you will be coming Honeychile. I cannot wait to meet you!!!!!
Wednesday is opening banquet. This is nice, it is semi-formal. You will get a gift from the Phoenix Alumnae Association (in 05 it was dream catchers, my idea I rock!). There will be a toast, the blessing, dinner, probably a tribute and then a speaker. Before opening banquet, you get to meet grand council. It's kind of cool. I kind of forget "their still my sisters" because they are in these "high" positions.
Thursday: Philanthropy lunch- awesome, all about RMH, you can't go wrong. Thursday night is Diamond 4-point awards. Sometime during this day is the parade of the flags (where you were all white). I believe voting is also done on this day as well (for voting participants).
Friday: Alumnae and Old Timers dinner. AWESOME. They do the anniversery (spelling isseus) awards (10-25-50 years of membership), you do the convention song. That is so fun to see who has been to the most conventions. Most will sit down after the first one. I will get to stand for 3, I feel special
. Oh the old timers you tend to dress for the theme.
Saturday: Panhellenic luncheon, Diamond Awards banquet. The formal dinner. The one and only time that you get to wear your pin with a formal dress. After all the awards you light the "candle" (a flashlight) and they call the roll. When your chapter is called you turn on the flashlight and stand. It's very cool, but I'm at the end of the list, (my collegians even further than me on the list). We then head outside and do the adpi sing along.
I believe on this day they do initiation. Each time I've gone, I've actually seen women initiated into Omega Alpha (the AI's). I'm sure they'll have AI's for this one. It's more a Q&A. It's supposed to show the collegians (and advisors) HOW initiation should be running. You get to see grand council performing it, so it's pretty cool.
Friday afternoon is on your own. They might set up activities for you to do as groups. The hotel is super close to the biltmore area of phoenix. The biltmore area has an AMC theaters, shopping, a cheesecake factory. I know I'm renting a car, but I'm not sure what I'll be doing that day.
There's malls, the zoo's, museums, it just depends on what you want to do.
Definitely will have to arrange a GC Adpi gathering.