Habitat for Humanity

How awesome was being a construction worker for a day and building a house for a family?? It was beyond awesome... different...toiling, yet fun and ultimately fulfilling. We had a decent turnout of volunteers from our chapter, and even more people volunteered from the community to assist with the wall raising for the home. This volunteer outing was even more intrinsically beneficial due to the fact that the family who was going to actually occupy the home was on site. We even saw Mercedes Andrews (the soon to be owner of the home) walk through the newly raised, partially constructed doors of the house she will soon be living in.

My index finger is still not too happy, as I amateurishly introduced it to a steel headed hammer. Sorry finger, I did what I had to do for a good cause :(

The local Channel 13 News was also on site, and our project was featured on the local Channel 13 evening news... you can view the article and a video here....

http://www.cfnews13.com/News/Local/2009/11/14/muslims_christians_unite_to_put_roof_over_familys_head.html

A rather peculiar title but I guess that's just journalism at work.

I am happy we were given the opportunity to help someone realize their dream of owning a new home. It is a beautiful thing.

A self-consumed life is not worth living...

Second Harvest the sequel

Our second outing a Second Harvest was rather similar to the first one; however, this time we had twice as many volunteers and the Factory Floor Manager was not as belligerent. :) Our task was to arrange boxes of food for families in time for Thanksgiving, and since there were many efficiently working hands, we got the job done in a couple of hours.
I really appreciated the member turnout, especially due to the fact that we had to be there at 9am on a Saturday! A dedicated set of Phi Theta Kappans indeed.
Enjoy the crisp, professional looking pictures of the event below. :)

Induction

If I could ascribe the adjective of perfection, or near perfection to any event we have organized thus far, it would definitely be our Induction ceremony. Our Executive Board, along with a few volunteers planned and orchestrated the event practically all day to the best of our ability, and the results were pleasing to say the least. We had a very good turnout of parents, supporters, and Inductees alike... the ceremony itself went smoothly as we had thoroughly rehearsed. We had Valencia's Vice President of Student Affairs, Dr. Joyce Romano as the guest speaker, and she sure delivered with humor, wit, leadership encouragement, and empowerment. The Inductees took the Phi Theta Kappa society oath which officially welcomed them into our society to the obvious delight of their supporting families.

After the actual ceremony, we had catering from Tropical Smoothie... absolutely delicious! (especially the wraps, I had about 8 of them :)

To encourage the Inductees to hang around and enjoy the post-ceremony food and fellowship, we had a ticket drawing for a door prize of Phi Theta Kappa goodies (shirts, various memorabilia etc.).

The parents and well wishers were very pleased with the ceremony and very proud of the inductees. Snapshots... hugs, kisses and all.

The hard work of being there the entire day paid off in the end.

Congrats again Inductees!! Endless possibilities are now open for you. Welcome into our Phi Theta Kappa family :)

Pie-a-Professor

Yes, we actually did it... we pied the professor with the most nominations as promised! In the FACE! :)... Thanks to all of you who donated... I won't tire you with my incessant wordage, or my boorish adjectives and figures of speech, I'll just let the pictures speak for themselves.

Much Thanks to Brian Macon for offering his face... so we could pie it!! Muhaha








It was fun indeed... a fun fundraiser... I mean, you don't necessarily get to take out your frustrations or see those frustrations taken out by another for you on a professor everyday (confusing sentence). So it was pretty cool... and we raised some money for our chapter in the process. I say it was worth it :)

New Inductees

Member recruitment went relatively well given the fact that the recession has made us all miserly and students find it much more difficult to fork out a penny, much more eighty bucks. We practically achieved our recruitment goal, and we have our Official Induction ceremony coming up next Friday, November 6 at 7pm in Bldg 8.

Congratulations to all of our New Inductees, welcome to the Phi Theta Kappa family, and prepare to be blown away by the opportunites which will be made available. You have made a stellar investment into a much brighter future.

So come on out to our Induction ceremony and make it official... you have earned it and you deserve it. :)

Member-of-the-Month

We have selected our first Member-of-the-Month for the semester... and the winner is [drumroll please]... Mr. Hardeley Butler.

A deserving recipient indeed... Mr. Butler has practically participated in all our events, getting involved as the opportunity presents itself. For the month of September, he was ever-present with our chapter's endeavors: he volunteered for the Light the Night Lymphoma and Leukemia Awareness walk, he was present at all our Phi Theta Kappa Meetings, he assisted with Member Recruitment by manning our promotion table on campus in place of our officers, and he was present at our first Second Harvest Food Bank volunteer effort.

Hopefully all our members will make every attempt to get involved as much as Hardeley and our runner up Ann Gabele (She did a lot too... got slightly edged out). They are what thePhi Theta Kappa concept of service and leadership are all about... people who believe in activism and take the necessary steps to demonstrate it.

The winner received a free Phi Theta Kappa T-shirt, along with extra member points and recognition.

Congrats Hardeley!!

Second Harverst Food Bank

Our first volunteer effort at Second Harvest went relatively well; we had an average turnout, but the members and officers who were in attendance really put their all into it without complaining. This is the true meaning of service... to "serve"- or to give of one's self.

We arrived at approximately 9am on Saturday morning, signed in, and then we proceeded to the conference room where we were shown a video of what Second Harvest does (provide food for the less fortunate), and testimonies of beneficiaries of the non-profit organization.

After the introduction we were lead onto the factory floor where we received instructions on how to sort, pack, and select the foods for shipping. Aside from the fact that our instructor was rather abrasive and authoritative :)... we had fun volunteering; we made the best of it, and it was worth it. It was particularly intrinsically rewarding due to the fact that we were aiding to benefit others who are less affluent than we are.

We packed and sorted many boxes... our work ethic was through the roof, and we got a lot done... evidently seen through the empty boxes and the clean, vacated, and unoccupied production line. :) All in all we spent a productive couple of hours at the Second Harvest Food Bank giving of ourselves. It was good fellowship for the members and officers alike, a slight workout/ exercise... and we were doing all this to help the needy. The Phi Theta Kappa spirit is rampant! :)

Leadership Conference

The Phi Theta Kappa Regional Leadership Conference totally exceeded my expectations. Not only did we have an absolute blast for the weekend ... we also acquired invaluable knowledge on the main focus of the conference - Leadership.

Held at the University of South Florida in Tampa, Fl, this Conference was a two day event which hosted several meetings and workshops which made an attempt to actualize

the leaders within us. Workshops dealing with the empowerment of members, dealing with leadership stress, leadership attributes, and team building, among others. The wor

kshops were not only informative, they rather interesting and mostly fun activities. My personal favorite was the workshop for empowering members. We were all placed in a room (approximately 30 people), blindfolded, and each told to hold a section of a large rope... we were then instructed to create a perfect square. Yup... I know... wow! It was a daunting task indeed... even for Honors students. :)

This particular workshop taught us that, as leaders, we ought to provide adequate instructions for our members to garner positive results from them. As our mediators just purposefully stated arbitrarily that we ought to "create a perfect square", without any added instructions. We also learnt that not everyone can be a leader in every given setting; take this activity for example... there was a lot of yelling and confusion at first, because naturally everyone wanted to grab the reins and be the self-proclaimed potentate of the group. However, it was not until we were all on one accord, playing our part, that we finally saw the results close to our objective of creating that perfect square.

Leadership is just as important as "followership"... and without both flowing concurrently, goals are much more difficult to accomplish.

These workshops were comprehensive, educational, and enlightening; we all came away with something... literally. We won raffled door prizes!! :)

And... we would not be Phi Theta Kappans if we did not include the Fellowship!!! We had tons of fun.... exploring USF's beautiful campus... chatting... laughing... and to top it all off... Busch Garden's

HOWL O' SCREAM on our final night in Tampa. Woooooo!!!!!

We scared ourselves... scared each other... and just had a blast. Hence, achieving the perfect balance... "all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy"...

None of our names are Jack. :)

Orientation/ Member recruitment

Our Orientation days went relatively well. However, we still need to make more attempts at membership recruitment in order to achieve our goal of inducting at least one hundred members at our Official Induction ceremony on November 6.

We hosted New Member Orientation on four consecutive days from Monday, Sept. 21 through Thursday, Sept. 25, entertaining an average of over thirty prospective members per day. We have already received several applications from numerous Orientation attendees, so hopefully many more will be submitted prior to the application deadline of October 16. Several attendees went as far as signing up for future events, especially our first Second Harvest Food Bank volunteer effort scheduled for October 9.

In an attempt to lure more members into Phi Theta Kappa (in a good way), we will also be setting up a table in the breezeway on campus with information, brochures, and applications... placing particular emphasis on scholarships.
We are pretty much going to utilize as many recruitment methods as possible in order to get more members, not only for official induction, but to also get them involved with our chapter and inevitably their future.

The Chi Epsilon officers attended a Phi Theta Kappa Leadership Conference at the University of South Florida in Tampa on September 25 and 26. We had a blast, and i will be blogging about the experience in a later post, so stay tuned. :)

Families R.O.C.K Weekend

Families R.O.C.K. (Reaching out to Cancer Kids) was an absolutely amazing and heartwarming success. Several of our Phi Theta Kappa officers volunteered for this event along with a couple of people from our Student Government Association (SGA). It is a safe assumption that I can speak for our entire team when I say it was worth every time spent and every mile driven to experience this event.


For those of you who don't know what Families R.O.C.K. weekend is; according to the America Cancer Society's website (www.cancer.org)... it is a fun, educational retreat for children with cancer and their families. Parents have an opportunity to learn more about the disease from medical professionals in a casual setting, while their children participate in fun, educational programs and activities. Anticipated Families R.O.C.K. Weekend outcomes range from increased compliance with treatment methods to enhancements to their quality of life.

As volunteers, our job during the afternoon hours was to meet and greet families, help them with directions and registration, while giving them a warm welcome to the beginning of a fun, relaxing yet informative weekend. After the registration process, dinner commenced at 6:30pm and after that we proceeded to the fun section of the night for the kids. It was just awesome seeing the warm smiles on the faces of the little ones as we interacted with them through fun activities such as T-shirt decorating. It was especially pleasing due to the fact that our chapter provided all the shirts to be decorated for the entire event.

The kids had so much fun at the T-shirt decorating session designing shirts for themselves and their families; throwing away all their cares in the world and just bringing out the little fashion designer in all of them. Watching these kids and how they were enthused and full of life, irrespective of the fact that they are stricken with a disease should show us how minute our problems really are. We are talking about children here, some of whom don't know the extent of what they are suffering from, children who probably won't get a chance to enjoy life as most of us are. Yet they are still living life to the fullest, way more than some of us who get so caught up with the cares and worries of our little worlds that we never stop to think how blessed and fortunate we are.

The organizers and parents alike were so grateful to us for our contributions because we went there as unselfish as possible and served - hence the term service. This is what the Phi Theta Kappa spirit is all about and I am happy we had an opportunity to impart that on others, making a difference in each and every one of their lives. Thank you American Cancer Society for giving us this opportunity... we look forward to doing this yet again.



GIVE A LITTLE LOVE AND IT ALL COMES BACK TO YOU!!!!

Welcome Back Week

The first week of school, although being a hectic one, turned out to be rather successful for Phi Theta Kappa. "Welcome Back Week" gave us an opportunity to reach out to both existing and prospective members alike; we got a chance to do this especially at the "Welcome Back Cookout" hosted by the Student Government Association (SGA). Phi Theta Kappa had a table set up with brochures and information about the organization while the officers who were manning the table answered any questions and concerns students had. It turned out pretty well as a means of promoting our chapter, we received interest from numerous students with varying familiarity levels with the organization. Hopefully that student curiosity will become a huge member pull and inevitably result in more student involvement throughout the school year.

It was also rather pleasing to see the interest in our chapter by members with their constant replies and queries to my mass emails. Most members let me know they couldn't be in attendance, asked about updates, recap meetings, etc. This shows that we have a lot of people who want to actually be a part of our organization, ones who are not here to be mere "seat-fillers".

More great news... We have secured our meeting room for General and Recap Meetings for the remaining of the semester. All our meetings shall be held in Bldg 9-228 at 2pm; General Meetings will be every other Tuesday, while the Recaps shall be held the Wednesday following. Our next meeting shall be on Tuesday, September 15, followed by the Recap on September 16.

Families R.O.C.K weekend was an absolute success! (find info and pics in a subsequent post)

The year is off to a promising start.

Chi Epsilon

The fast approaching school year shall be met with much vigor and enthusiasm from Chi Epsilon's newly elected Executive Board. Under the tutelage of our ever-present advisors, our plans and ideas for the year shall hopefully be actualized for a very successful and fulfilling term. 

According to Phi Theta Kappa's website (www.ptk.org), 

"The purpose of Phi Theta Kappa shall be to recognize and encourage scholarship among two-year college students. To achieve this purpose, Phi Theta Kappa shall provide opportunity for the development of leadership and service, for an intellectual climate for exchange of ideas and ideals, for lively fellowship for scholars, and for stimulation of interest in continuing academic excellence."

Chi Epsilon's goal for this school year is to not only fulfill Phi Theta Kappa's Mission Statement, but to exceed these expectations in a fun-filled yet ultimately beneficial environment. 

Our Executive Board has developed a basic, tentative outline of the crucial events for the upcoming semester such as our meeting dates and times, Orientation dates and times, and the date of our official Induction for the Fall semester. The first meeting of the semester is scheduled for Tuesday, the 1st of September, and shall be held in room 6-202 at Valencia Community College's West Campus. Our E-Board and General meetings shall be held bi-weekly; they shall be used as a means of discussing past and upcoming events, while promoting member participation and recognition, and partaking in Phi Theta Kappa's four hallmarks (Scholarship, Service, Leadership, and Fellowship). A recap meeting will also be held the Wednesday immediately following the General Meetings. 

Orientation dates are set to run from September 21 through September 24; while our Induction ceremony is scheduled for November 6. More information on those shall be placed in subsequent blog posts.

The upcoming year shall be one full of excitement, challenges, growth, and achievement; as we are ready and willing to do all deemed necessary to make this term a success, irrespective of the fact that all officers on the Executive Board are considerably new. Phi Theta Kappa is a great organization and we intend to compliment it with our youthful responsibility, encourage academic achievement, while providing opportunities for growth and personal  development. 

This blog shall chronicle all of this chapter's plans, endeavors, and achievements.

Stay tuned for amazing things.