Acacia Leadership Academy: Day Two

Hello Gentlemen,

ALA definitely teaches you to go back to your hold habits of waking up early if you aren't very use to it. Thus you can always distinguish the ones who regret not getting much sleep in the morning and are slightly amused by it.

We started the morning off with formal opening ceremonies which included the newly elected officers. Then we had the honor of listening to Robert E. Roberson as he explained to us his personal experiences and journey as an Acacian. It was definitely was a great opportunity for the brothers to get an insightful look into the president and his daily obstacles in the position as dealing with brothers across the nation and up north can surely be a great challenge at times.

Afterwards we broke out into groups to talk about our practices in our chapters and ritual as a whole.

Then the games begin, where men are defined and leaders are born. Yes, I am of course talking about the Acacia Olympics.  Four teams face off and try to attain bragging rights and glory as we compete in Basketball, Euchre, Volleyball,  Quaterbacks, Darts, and Horseshoes. But the twist is that bowling and paintball counts for double points on the board thus tomorrow is going to be a big day for the teams.

After hustling under the sun to win for our teams, we came in to be presented Acacia Fraternity's latest resource to maintain chapter communication and finances. In partnership with ChapterSpot, Acacia is proud to present AcaciaConnect. This tool has the ability to give chapters across the nation a leg up on their respective campuses as its potential is limitless and its features are mind blowing.

After dinner, we listened to the knowledgable Patrick McGovern about the revamped Cornerstones program. Where he addressed a lot of the issue underlying the program and answered questions which gave the brothers new confidence in the program. We hope to take these lessons back to our chapters and help develop not only better brothers but exceptional gentlemen in our communities.

We ended the day by going into breakout sessions, and discussing about membership development and recruitment. We all shared ideas about how to recruit, retain and improve brothers and future members.

At night, we put on a movie to watch for the brothers who were interested and called it a day.

Tomorrow we are gong paintballing and i believe it is definitely one of the most anticipated event at ALA right now. Its going to be a long day, but as usual, as Acacians, we intend to make the most of it and learn as much as we can.

It is always a pleasure to keep my brothers updated about our whereabouts here in ALA. I hope you are all doing well wherever you may be.

Fraternally,

Nash Mendes
Secretary
Carleton Chapter