August 20, 2016
Delta Delta’s first Brotherhood Retreat as a chartered Chapter occurred in late August, at the very beginning of our fall semester. Because school was just starting up, nobody was bogged down with assignments or studying, so we had a really amazing opportunity to focus our efforts and set goals for the coming year - our first full academic and AAP year as a Chapter. Still, just because there was business to attend to did not mean that our retreat would only be a boring meeting.
To get everyone’s mind off of school, we held our retreat far from campus, at our gracious advisor Dr. Cooper-DeHoff’s home (thanks again!). We split up throughout the retreat with various activities including three different brother-building games. The first was a “minefield” where Brothers would close their eyes and use the guidance of their twin Brother to navigate through the “traps” and
obstacles. This helped us practice trust as well as develop some communication skills while the pairs competed for the best time through the course. The second game was a balloon-popping game, where Brothers had three balloons tied to their ankle and had to try and pop each other’s balloons while keeping theirs safe – This helped us practice brainstorming and strategy making, but mostly let us have some fun. Finally, we had a “water dining dash” game, where three pairs of brothers would have to deliver filled cups of water on a waiting tray from one table to another. The caveat was that the brother holding the tray could not touch the cups, so the brother filling and putting cups on the tray had to communicate and strategize with the brother holding the tray to get the most
water cups over to the other side.
After a couple hours of fun and games, our growing Chapter also grew hungry, which of course meant it was time for some delicious pizza and pasta. Before it was time for business, however, we had one more activity in the sun. Split into teams, we had to play a
game similar to “hungry, hungry hippos” where brothers took turns jumping in the pool and grabbing ping pong balls painted according to their team.
The day wouldn’t be complete without talking business, so we sat down and came up with goals for the Chapter as well as brainstormed some strategies to complete them. We also spent a good amount of time congratulating our Brothers on the work they
already completed and recognizing how much we had already grown. As is tradition, we had many belated birthdays to celebrate for those Brothers with summertime birthdays. Overall, our retreat marked a great point of progress for us as well as a time to decompress and relax before the grind of the school year picked up.
BY: JAMES WINSLOW
Delta Delta’s first Brotherhood Retreat as a chartered Chapter occurred in late August, at the very beginning of our fall semester. Because school was just starting up, nobody was bogged down with assignments or studying, so we had a really amazing opportunity to focus our efforts and set goals for the coming year - our first full academic and AAP year as a Chapter. Still, just because there was business to attend to did not mean that our retreat would only be a boring meeting.
To get everyone’s mind off of school, we held our retreat far from campus, at our gracious advisor Dr. Cooper-DeHoff’s home (thanks again!). We split up throughout the retreat with various activities including three different brother-building games. The first was a “minefield” where Brothers would close their eyes and use the guidance of their twin Brother to navigate through the “traps” and
obstacles. This helped us practice trust as well as develop some communication skills while the pairs competed for the best time through the course. The second game was a balloon-popping game, where Brothers had three balloons tied to their ankle and had to try and pop each other’s balloons while keeping theirs safe – This helped us practice brainstorming and strategy making, but mostly let us have some fun. Finally, we had a “water dining dash” game, where three pairs of brothers would have to deliver filled cups of water on a waiting tray from one table to another. The caveat was that the brother holding the tray could not touch the cups, so the brother filling and putting cups on the tray had to communicate and strategize with the brother holding the tray to get the most
water cups over to the other side.
After a couple hours of fun and games, our growing Chapter also grew hungry, which of course meant it was time for some delicious pizza and pasta. Before it was time for business, however, we had one more activity in the sun. Split into teams, we had to play a
game similar to “hungry, hungry hippos” where brothers took turns jumping in the pool and grabbing ping pong balls painted according to their team.
The day wouldn’t be complete without talking business, so we sat down and came up with goals for the Chapter as well as brainstormed some strategies to complete them. We also spent a good amount of time congratulating our Brothers on the work they
already completed and recognizing how much we had already grown. As is tradition, we had many belated birthdays to celebrate for those Brothers with summertime birthdays. Overall, our retreat marked a great point of progress for us as well as a time to decompress and relax before the grind of the school year picked up.
BY: JAMES WINSLOW