Martin Luther King Junior Memorial Weekend

For this long weekend we had a leadership conference in Atlanta. On Friday at noon all the students came together had lunch, and then explored the National Center for Civil and Human Rights. After, we had  a discussion about the things we saw and it was very insightful to get a perspective from other students. That evening we went to Slingshot Entertainment where we had dinner, bowled and attempted to conquer the Ninja Obstacle course. While some of us were more skilled, we all talked and had fun. That evening we all stayed with our weekend host families.

On Saturday morning I got Avengers waffles for breakfast before arriving at Oglethorpe University! There was also a continental breakfast before we started the days activities. We had a Fierce Conversations seminar where we talked about the principles, meaning and objectives of Fierce Conversations. “A Fierce Conversation is one in which we come out from behind ourselves, into the conversation, and make it real.” We learned about transformational ideas, The Beach Ball Model and how to coach conversations. We had lunch in the Oglethorpe Dining Hall, where we were well fed; I liked that you could make your own sandwich (peanut butter, honey and banana if you were wondering)!

Then we continued on into the early afternoon where we stopped and participated in the Stop Hunger Now service project. This involved us packing a vitamin packet, some dehydrated vegetables, some protein and rice into a bag to be sealed and sent to someone in need.  Each bag fed six people and we packed 10, 368 in two hours. Then that evening we all broke into smaller groups to have dinner. It was nice to spend some time together in a more relaxed setting.

On Sunday morning we were back at Oglethorpe University for the last activity before we were all off to our respective colleges. We had to come up with a service project that could win $10 000 to help implement our plan. We didn’t really win anything, the aim was to get us to work together in small groups to fight a problem connected to one of Rotary’s core values. It was facilitated by the Rotaract Club of Atlanta. It was really great to hear what everyone came up with.

Then today a few of us went for a big long walk to downtown Lawrenceville. Forty five minutes there and forty five back, it was really nice outside. It was sunny even though it was -1 degrees Celsius which is confusing! We got coffees and cakes and had a great time. I got a strawberry cupcake which was so good!