Another Hickory Alive Season Begins

Another Hickory Alive season begins and thus also begins the Hickory Jaycee's busy time.  Every Friday in June and July, the Hickory Jaycees put on a summer concert series in downtown Hickory.   Union square fills up with hundreds of concert goers who listen to rock sounds and enjoy a fun evening under the stars. 

Although the Jaycees do things all year long, Hickory Alive seems to be the beginning of a huge momentum of activity right until the end of the year.  This summer series is a lot of fun but is a lot of work to put on and requires a decent amount of volunteer manpower hours to put on.  Not a big deal if it were only 1 weekend but trying to keep 9 weekends staffed can be a bit of a challenge, particularly as the summer gets hotter and hotter. 

We're always looking for ways to motivate our members to sign-up and assist with the events.  We have tried some different techniques with incentives with mixed success.  Many enjoy attending the event more so than helping with the event.  Of course attending the event is more fun then working but the work still needs to get done in order to support the chapter. 

A board member recently asked a very good question, how do you get the work done but still have fun?  I think that's a great question that I don't really have the answer to.  Any ideas?

Jaycee President + Grad School = Ouch

So I'm 4-1/2 months through my local Jaycee Presidency and I can't even really tell you what I've done.  Sadly I've been a very absent president.  My presidency coincided with my last semester of grad school.  For the most part, the work load has been manageable.  However, this last semester has bitten me in the a$$.  I had a very deeply involved final project that I swear gave me anxiety attacks.  Let's add work and a couple trips into the mix and who has time for Jaycees after all that?

Fortunately, I have an awesome board.  I wouldn't make it through the last few months without their leadership.  I have a wonderful Chairman of the Board who covered meetings for me when I had classes and some rockin' VP's who managed great projects that ran smoothly.  Best of all, I didn't have to worry that things would drop through the cracks.  They took care of all of our spring signature projects and set me up to re-join the Jaycee forces now that classes are over. 

I've always been a very independent, take charge kind of person.   However, this experience has been a great lesson in teamwork.  In the words of John Donne, "No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is piece of the continent".

My First Blog Post

Well hello!  I've finally decided to start my first blog.  I've heard a lot about them over the years and decided to start the great experiment of creating one myself.  I never really thought of myself as a writer.  I never really thought people would be interested in what I had to say.  I didn't know if I have anything that would be interesting enough to write about.  I finally decided to take the plunge anyways.

I've asked some others who have blogs, "What do you write about?  How do you come up with interesting enough topics to keep them going?"  In the end, I have heard the advice to write about something for which you have passion.  So at first I thought...I'll write about Girl Scout cookies!  However, that's the last thing this pudgy girl needs to focus on. 

Actually what I've been passionate about for a long time are the Jaycees.  It's a young professionals organization that I've had the pleasure to be a part of for almost 7 years.  (wow, has it really been that long?)  This year, I'm our local chapter President and a blog may be a great way to keep track of all the things that has and will happen over the year.   

I'm sure this blog will contain other bits of random information that I find amusing and I make no promises that what I find amusing will also humor you.  I do hope that at least what I write is entertaining to a few of you and I hope to participate and read others' blogs as well.

That's all I've got for the moment but hope to pop on again in the near future.