The following is a guest post written by brother Matt Colphon discussing his recent experience at BLTW 2010. This was Matt’s first trip to BLTW.
For reference, although I’ve been a brother since fall 2007, this is the first experience BLTW experience I’ve been able to attend. So when the opportunity to go came up, I was more than eager to join my brothers to the south, although I had no idea what to expect. At any rate, on Wednesday night we packed up the rental car and set off down the winding roads of Southern Ontario and the eastern seaboard, arrive in Chapel Hill some 14 hours after our drive started. I immediately took note of how beautiful the campus was, with its colonial buildings, luscious courtyards and the Kenan Memorial Stadium in the centre, as though it were a precious stone. I quickly dropped off my bags and proceeded to the opening ceremonies.
BLTW Small Groups
Nothing could quite have prepared me for what came next. As I entered the hall nearly 1900 brothers surrounded me, all dressed in letter, with some carrying flags of their chapter letters, countries or the white cross. Being from a midsize chapter in a non-Greek school this was by far the biggest show of fraternity pride I had ever seen. From that point forward everything seemed to happen at a surreal pace. Before long we were moving out, breaking out into session groups for the officer positions – Consuls here, Quaestors there – and going to our first group sessions. After a brief introduction to the 200 some other Quaestors attending that weekend, we quickly broke into smaller discussion groups which would be the focus of most of the training.
With 10 brothers and an alumnus each, the discussion groups are really where most of the learning happened during the week. We met for a few hours 4 separate times during the workshop and we discussed everything, from chapter sizes to financial struggles and successes, highlighting the differences and giving each other tips on anything relevant, both in and out of our portfolios. I was astonished to see how some chapters had recruitment budgets bigger than my entire semester’s cash flow, but it was still amazing to see how much of the work and method was the same regardless of size. From all that, I was able to walk away with a new set of tools going into the next school year.
BLTW isn’t all about work though. Tons of other activities happened during our stay. A ritual exemplification was performed, initiating 8 new brothers to the Alpha Tau chapter and demonstrating one of our most significant elements to 1900 active and alumnus brothers. SigFest was another hit, with basketball and football games, corn hole, a Texas Hold Em tournament and a t-shirt exchange attracting and bonding many brothers during the two evenings. And finally, the conclusion of the weekend was an event in and of itself, with major awards being given to chapters and brothers, including the prestigious International Balfour Award and the Peterson Outstanding Chapter Award.
My only regret about this BLTW is that it will be my first, but it will hopefully not be my last. The brotherhood I have built during the 3 short days eclipsed any expectation that I had originally had, and has made my Sigma Chi experience even more amazing than it already was. Hopefully in the future BLTW will be able to come up north to Canada (or at least New York) but other than that I wouldn’t change this experience at all.
Sigma Chi podcast by ShareSigmaChi.com – Discussing Horizons with Ryan Wakefield after his facilitator training.
In this episode we discuss Horizons from a facilitator’s perspective. Ryan just finished his facilitator training and will be attending Horizons as a facilitator two times in the next five years. We discuss how you can become a facilitator and what Ryan gained from his experience
Host: Jacob Cook
Guest: Ryan Wakefield
Running Time: 10:29
Its easy to stay up to date with the podcast and many ways to subscribe.
Sigma Chi podcast by ShareSigmaChi.com – Discussing Horizons with Ryan Wakefield
[update 6.3.2010] Ryan is currently a “facilitator in training”. He leaves tomorrow for his first Horizons experience as a facilitator.
In this episode we discuss Horizons from a facilitator’s perspective. Ryan will be facilitating Horizons for the first time at Session I this summer. We discuss how you can become a facilitator and what Ryan is expecting from this experience.
Host: Jacob Cook
Guest: Ryan Wakefield
Running Time: 13:43
I uploaded the first part of our discussion to YouTube.
Its easy to stay up to date with the podcast and many ways to subscribe.
Sigma Chi podcast by ShareSigmaChi.com – Discussing Cornerstone with Wayne Tucker
In this episode we discuss Sigma Chi Cornerstone with Grand Consul Wayne Tucker. He encourages alum to participate and discusses why Cornerstone is important. We also discussed the “video contest” that Cornerstone is having this summer. The winning chapter will have their video played at BLTW as well as have the International Sweetheart visit their chapter for a weekend.
Episode 18
Host: Jacob Cook
Running Time: 18:16
Its easy to stay up to date with the podcast and many ways to subscribe.
In this episode Noah and I discuss two leadership programs that are available to Greek and potential Greek members. They offer various activities for pledges, members, men & women. They are as UIFI (Undergraduate Interfraternity Institute) & Futures Quest.
I just got off a Skype call with a Cornerstone board member and I’m pretty excited about what they have planned. The first thing we are going to do is record a podcast in the next few weeks to discuss Cornerstone. The best part, the guest for the podcast is current Grand Consul Wayne Tucker. I’m really excited to be recording a podcast with another Grand Consul. (I was lucky enough to record a podcast with former Grand Consul Keith Krach discussing Horizons.)
The other exciting news is Cornerstone will be having a contest that your chapter will definitely want to get involved with. I should be getting some more information next week so be looking for another blog post with all the details.
Here are some links that have more information about Cornerstone:
In June of 2009 I was lucky enough to record a Horizons podcast with former Grand Consul Keith Krach. There were two other Sigs who have been to Horizons that participate and gave their thoughts about the experience. I was listening to the podcast and realized there were some really good quotes by all three of em. So I decided to strip out the quotes and put some music to them. Feel free to use this and share with your chapter with this short link: http://bit.ly/brOT6O
Keith Krach, Cory Williamson, Martin Erbele
Running Time: 1:34
In this episode we will be discussing some of new Sigma Chi’s newest endeavors into social media. We will discuss what we like about their social media strategies and how we think Sigma Chi can improve. We are both really impressed with the fraternity’s recent push into social media and excited to see what they do in the future.
IHSV
Here is a short url so you can easily share this post with others: http://bit.ly/5cufnz
In this episode we will be discussing Cory’s new online initiative for web/graphic designers called “Your Graphics”. We will also discuss the new SigmaChi.com and the old “InCircle”.
Posted by Jacob 
ShareSigmaChi.com Blog 