2013 Amherst Regional Summit Recap

—This post was written by Laura Molyneaux, Region 10 Council of Student Members Representative—
The Region 10 Summit took place February 22-24, 2013 at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Although this was my third regional conference, it was just as fun and exciting as the first one I attended at Stony Brook University.  I was thrilled that the Region 10 Summit this year was held at my home university.  Go UMass!

We started the conference with registration and check-in at the Campus Center Hotel, which, as the name suggests, is conveniently located in the center of campus and is directly connected to the conference rooms.  After everyone arrived, we headed downstairs for the Opening Session, where Dr. Tom Matthews gave a wonderful opening speech about the importance of developing your leadership ability. You should check out his book Building Leaders One Hour at a Time. Holly McCaleb (the GK Director of University Relations), C.J. Wilkes (a GK Marketing Manager), and Alecia Beck (our wonderful Region 10 Associate Director), welcomed everyone and the Regional Summit got underway.
Saturday was packed with workshops and volunteering. The workshops covered everything from the basics of being a Golden Key member in “Golden Key 101”, to the day-to-day operations of running your chapter in “Marketing for Success”, to developing leadership skills and more.  Local business leader Marcie Muehlke graciously took time away from building her new business, Celia Grace, to lead a workshop that taught how to become a successful leader in our community.
For lunch, attendees got to explore a bit more of the UMass Amherst campus as we headed to one of the local dining halls.  Before the workshops started back up, we took a break to write letters to troops deployed overseas through “Operation Gratitude”.  We also spent some time highlighting some of the amazing service projects and events that the Region 10 chapters have held and participated in.  I couldn’t be more proud of the amazing work that we’re doing our region and the work that our officers are doing to continue to strengthen their chapters.            
                
Saturday evening (after we had all had a chance to clean up, and maybe nap), we had our closing dinner, a delicious, locally sourced buffet complete with entertainment provided by the Doo Wop Shop.  Who would have thought that we would be listening to a great a cappella group while enjoying freshly grown radishes?  We all dressed up in our various versions of “snappy casual” and had a great time! With some exploring of Amherst and Northampton mixed in throughout the weekend, Regional Summit was a lot of fun.
Sunday, of course, involved fleeing the snow storm that had been threatening all weekend.  And while those of us from the area were unconcerned, it had our visitors from Atlanta checking the weather during nearly every break.  Luckily, everyone made it back to their respective home-bases without incident.

One of my favorite parts of the conference was definitely getting to see the growth in Region 10 over the last year and, of course, getting to meet new people.   As with each of the Regional Summits I’ve been to, I met great people and attended inspiring workshops.
Since I will be graduating this year, and will no longer be actively involved in Golden Key, I was so proud of my home chapter for pulling together in order to plan a wonderful Regional Summit.  I am sure that whatever the future holds for Region 10 and its diverse group of chapters, we won’t hold back.  ‘Cause we are Region 10!
I’ll see you all in Boston for International Summit 2014!