Bakersfield Leadership Conference: Sunny Skies and Amazing Phi Sigma Sigma Sisters!

Bakersfield, CA was the site of Community 9’s 4th Annual Leadership Conference and it was a fantastic time. We had executive board members from 10 chapters and 2 colonies and all our alumnae volunteers from Arizona, California, Oregon, Colorado, and Nevada! A big thank you to all of you who traveled in from all corners of Community 9!

Friday evening started with a great meal at a local Basque restaurant and then it was off to Community 9 Leadership Conference! Beginning with a Philanthropic Recruitment event where fraternity personnel worked to recruit our collegiate women to join the Tau Beta ("The Best") chapter of Phi Sigma Sigma. This was a great opportunity for chapters to learn a new idea for philanthropic recruitment and we hope that many of our chapters will incorporate this into their next recruitment planning.

Saturday was the busiest day! A.C.H.I.E.V.E, officer round-tables, awards luncheon, preference ceremony, an alumna initiation, luggage finally arriving, and finally, the Foundation dinner. The one thing we heard over and over was that there wasn't enough TIME!!! The women soaked up every opportunity they had to network, exchange ideas, and discuss best chapter practices.

LC 9 had some great moments, and here is a small synopsis: Little notes of welcome from the Epsilon Epsilon Chapter “West is BEST”, ACHIEVE, the Preference ceremony for our new colonies at University of Colorado @ Colorado Springs, and Metro State Denver, Initiating Linda Adams (mom of Epsilon Epsilon CKA Stacy Hayden), the debut of a new Foundation Auctioneer-Katie Herschede who did such a great job that we raised over $24,000 for Foundation, 8 new members of the 1913 society, on and on!

Before we knew it Sunday morning arrived. Where did the time go? We were so excited to see the enthusiasm of our collegiate women of the information they had to take back to their chapters, watching sisters bond with not only their chapter sisters but with sisters from all over our community! We only wished we had more time...but we are very excited for Conclave this summer at Disney World in Orlando, FL.

We would like to give a special shout-out to: all of the ACHIEVE Facilitators, Foundation, Fraternity HQ staff especially our membership manager Cat Udell, Nicole Hollar, our three Grand Archons who came out- Kim Hildred, Chris Senseney, and Sandy Grossman and finally, to our amazing Chapter Key Advisor's, Advisory Board Members, Collegiate Sisters, and Colony members that attend the conference! See you in July!

In Our Bond,

Joanne Barrick
Community Archon

Catherine Udell
Membership Manager