And yet another company who attended the Convention has blogged about us!

This post is from Projects Abroad, a nonprofit that places volunteers in projects all over the world.

Remember a while ago when I wrote a post about FirstBook, a literacy-oriented nonprofit? Two of the company’s reps were at the Convention, and one of them wrote a glowing post on their blog about the Convention. It’s a great summation of what the Convention was all about.

.. it’s all over.

Look for pictures in the coming days of the Convention, as well as the closing session. And be sure to email me at someshwar at nscs dot org , to share your convention experiences.

See you next year in Orlando!

I just shook hands with a NYC deputy mayor (Dennis Walcott).  He’s a really nice person, in case you were wondering. I’ll have more on his speech after I attend it.

At the second annual NSCS Leadership Summit in 1997, there were 13 people—including two staff members and two members of the board of directors. How far we’ve come in ten years!

Our first Member Convention/Leadership Summit has been an amazing experience. Miss America, a NASA astronaut, a runner-up on Donald Trump’s The Apprentice, and the Deputy Mayor of New York—all featured speakers at the convention.

There’s been great energy here this week and members seem to be getting a lot from the presentations and the exhibitors.

Last night, attendees were very amused by Tom DeLuca, a hypnotist with a knack for getting volunteers to do crazy things and subsequently creating constant laughs.

Stay tuned for an update on today’s events and more recollections from the 2007 NSCS Member Convention and Leadership Summit!

-Jim

“Listen blondie, you’re making a big mistake.”

–the granddad of Apprentice contestant Lee Bienstock said this to Donald Trump, after Trump picked someone else to win The Apprentice.

I love when speakers tell funny family stories.

Jim Duncan, my co-blogger is actually busy with 20 other things right now, so I’m going to be doing most of the blogging. He will be floating around, though, taking pictures and talking to folks. So if you’re at the Convention and see him around, stop by and say hi.

I decided to track him down and take some pictures.

Here’s Jim at the Community Service table, not happy about being photographed.

Now he deigns to smile-heh.

Ericka Dunlap, Miss America 2004, spoke this morning. She spoke about having the right attitude and leadership building. My favorite part of her session was actually the Q & A bit– someone asked her to sing a country song (she’s in Nashville trying to start one).  She has a really nice voice. She mentioned that music producers telling her to just stick with rapping instead of country, because she’s black.

She also left us this bag of M & M’s. It was part of her analogy about being a truffle in a bag of M and Ms. I don’t see any truffles in there, but I’m happy to chug the M and M’s.

The bag was full when we got it. I was not alone in eating them.

After Ericka’s speech, we’ve had about two hours of workshops on everything from writing a personal statement to how to take the GRE. And there’s more workshops to come in the afternoon after 3.

Before that, though, we have Lee Bienstock and Astronaut Chris Armstrong– between 1:30 and 3pm. Lee was on the 5th season of the Apprentice, where he spent several weeks staring down Donald Trump in the boardroom and trying his hardest not to laugh at The Donald’s hair. (At least I assume that’s what he did– I know I’d fall over laughing if I had to stare at DT’s hair all night).

I wrote the intros for most of the keynote speakers we had at the Convention. It’s fun and a bit strange to hear the National Leadership Council folks read those intros. Maybe that’ll be my next career– convention speechwriter. No, don’t feel sorry for me.. I’m only half-joking about the speech-writing bit.

My battery has virtually no power, but I have to type this right now. Bill Strickland was awesome tonight. Bill runs a nonprofit in Pittsburgh that helps people find jobs in virtually any industry imaginable– the crafts, the culinary arts, you name it. But his commitment to helping people and the collaborations he participated in, were amazing.

Two things he said that I found interesting. The first– that he believed people’s behaviors are responses to their environments. That’s why he built the building that houses all his programs in one of Pittsburgh’s worst neighborhoods.

He also said that he got a “depression gene” from his mother that made it impossible for him to get images of suffering out of his mind–whether it was suffering in the US or overseas. (He put it much better, obviously). It was a really good speech, and he got a standing ovation.

Sara (who posted earlier today) will add some pictures of him speaking, soon.

I attended a lot of workshops this afternoon—all of which were designed to help chapter officers and advisors improve recruitment, visibility and members’ experience.

At the work, “Don’t just lead a binder, leave a legacy” Alicia (one of our member experience managers) and Lauren (who is a SA) led an idea- generating workshop about improving member turnout, and setting and implementing goals for individual chapters.

Later in the day, Andrea (the director of outreach) and Stephanie (also an SA) led a workshop on the NSCS class of 2008, and ways to increase membership.

Here are some tips that both workshops had, about increasing recruitment and/ or involvement:

Ideas that people had for various events:

• Doing a social event before the induction ceremony to get inductees excited about the ceremony.
• Giving people stars (gold, silver, bronze for attending meetings).
• Holding raffles for those who attend meetings so that they can win prizes.
  Get involved in Freshman Orientation week—wear your NSCS T-shirts as you work, so that freshmen see NSCS on campus. Decorating the dorm room doors of people who’ve joined:
• –working with advisor, stay in contact with your Registrar.
• End-of-the-year party where members could bring non-member friends.
• Facebook ads.
• Using facebook to promote community service events.
• Invite your academic advisors to NSCS induction—so that they know about NSCS and can answer questions from other students. Also invite representatives from the honors college/ department.
• Help create a homecoming float.
• Work with the student activities office.

Gratuitious workshop images:

Alicia and Lauren.

Stephanie and Andrea are in there, I promise. I just can’t guarantee picture quality, or you know, zoom.

Proof that I was working. I typed everything in word docs, and then did a cut and paste job later.