Following the success of our Chapter Leader Town Hall in the spring, our Chapter Health and Retention Committee held a special, virtual End of Summer Celebration for Chapter Leaders, Mentors, and Regional Leaders on August 25.  It was a fun event that gave Chapter Leaders across the country the opportunity to meet each other and share stories of their chapters.  We had nearly 150 members in attendance. It was wonderful to see so many smiling faces, and there were lots of great ideas generated for managing your chapter. We have compiled them all to share with you!

The night started with a warm welcome from our Co-founder Barb Collins. Barb spoke of the importance of the work we are doing for global gender equality. She agreed with recent comments by UN Women’s Executive Director who said, “Partnerships and collaborative efforts can safeguard the rights of women and girls and help countries get back on track to achieving SDG5 on gender equality and the empowerment of all women”. This is exactly what DFW is doing. We are uniquely poised to accelerate this through our programs.

We then broke into small groups (yes, you can do that on Zoom!) which gave everyone the opportunity to meet other Chapter Leaders, Mentors, and Regional Leaders from across the country. In these breakout groups, we discussed the following questions:

How is your chapter staying engaged right now? Are you meeting virtually, in person, or not at all? What are you thinking of for the future? 

How do you promote good discussions in your meetings and keep people interested and engaged?

To hear more about these discussions and learn new ways to keep your chapter engaged, click here.

The evening continued with an exciting prize wheel and some cool DFW prizes. (Do our staff have a future as game show hosts?)

The night ended with an important message from Lynn O’Connell, Chair of DFW’s Board of Directors. She thanked everyone for their energy and engagement during this challenging year. She encouraged everyone to remember our upcoming annual appeal because our grantees need our support more than ever during this pandemic.

Thanks to the Chapter Health and Retention Committee and Rachel Peterson for hosting this incredibly fun event. Everyone had a great time and we hope to have similar events like this in the future.  We invite all CLs to provide their input on future meetings like this here .