New Year Goal Setting

Happy New Year! Yes we know we are about a month early and New Year’s Eve is still weeks away.  But, for many of our collegiate chapters, new officers are in place and they have started their “year” in their Delta Zeta position. Which means that this is the perfect time for goal-setting. We all set goals, whether they be academic, personal, health and fitness, professional or for the success of an organization with which we are involved. Unfortunately, most of us have experienced instances where we have not met those goals or felt we plateaued in our progress towards them because we just didn’t know what to do next. Some purposeful work on the front-end, using the SMART goal-setting method, can help us all achieve what we wish in 2015.

SMART (or sometimes SMARTER) is a mnemonic for objective-based goal-setting. While there is no standard definition for each letter, it is commonly interpreted to mean:

·         S – Specific – Goals should be clear and precise. It can be helpful to think of the 5 W questions here.

1.       What do you want to accomplish exactly?

2.       Why is that important?

3.       Who will be involved?

4.       Where will this be achieved?

5.       Which requirements/constraints should be articulated?

·         M – Measurable – Identify criteria by which you can gauge progress. This can help you, or your group, stay on track and meet your target dates. This can also assist with motivation. We all love to check things off to-do lists.

·         A – Attainable – Goals should be achievable. Goals that require you to stretch and think big are appropriate, but goals that are out of reach or are below your typical performance are not as meaningful.

·         R – Relevant – Goals should be worthwhile and important to you. Make sure you are willing and able to work towards this goal.

·         T – Time Bound – Set a target date for each goal. This will help you set incremental goals to track your progress. It also helps prevent this goal from being lost in day-to-day activities.

·         E – This “E” can mean several items based upon your goal-setting environment. For example, ethical, ecological, evaluate, enjoyable, engaging. If one of these words resonates with you and your goal-setting, be sure to incorporate it into your goal-setting.

·         R – Reevaluate, recordable, rewarding, reaching, reassess. Use as appropriate in your goal-setting environment.

What are some of your SMART goals for the coming year? Do you want to raise your chapter GPA by .1 points? Do you want to put an extra $200 in savings each month? Do you want to run your first marathon? Share with us what goals you are setting by leaving a comment on our Facebook page or tweeting them to us @DeltaZetaNatl using the hashtag #DZGoal.

My chapter received a recruitment introduction– now what?

In 2013, Delta Zeta started using an online recruitment introduction form for alumnae to send Legacy and potential new member introductions via our website. The online form saves time for both the member making the introduction and for the chapters receiving the information. Chapters may still receive introductions with the older version of the form via email or the mail, however we have seen an increase in our online submissions over the past year. 

For new officers, or those preparing for deferred recruitment, you may be wondering how you access your online recruitment introduction forms. Each night if you have received any online forms the Vice President of Membership, as well as the Recruitment Advisor and CCD, will receive an email alerting you to log into Chapter Inc. to view the forms. Forms are saved in the Recruitment menu – under Reports. There are two ways to view the forms – either in an excel list for all information using the Full Report of Recruitment and Legacy Introduction Forms or as individual PDFs with photos, if submitted, with the Individual Recruitment and Legacy Introduction Forms.

After recruitment has finished, there is one last step to managing your Recruitment and Legacy Introduction Forms. Chapters receiving online Recruitment and Legacy Introduction Forms via Chapter Inc. can manage them using the Membership – Actions – Manage Recruitment Introduction forms.  Potential new members with information in our database can be either added as new members or marked as not bid. Potential new members who you've received a form for are automatically added to the Delta Zeta database when you complete this membership action. This saves you lots of time when entering new member information because we already have it from the forms submitted! Any officer with access to the Membership Action menu can manage your forms.

If your chapter has any questions on the Recruitment and Legacy Introduction Form, or Chapter Inc., please let us know by emailing ChapterInc@dzshq.com.

Giving Thanks and Giving Tuesday

Since our last blog post about what members are #DZGrateful for this month we’ve seen hundreds of posts and photos from our sisters giving thanks for Delta Zeta and all they have gained because of their experience. We’ve also seen how our members are donating time and treasure to their communities during this season of giving.

As the United States celebrates Thanksgiving this week, and the unofficial kick off of the holiday season, a new idea is circulating which celebrates how people give back. You’ve heard of Black Friday and, more recently, Cyber Monday, but do you know that Tuesday, December 2, 2014 is #GivingTuesday? Giving Tuesday is a “global day dedicated to giving back.”

Delta Zeta members give back every day. Whether it be in a volunteer role, through chapter community service events, fundraisers for philanthropy partners like the Painted Turtle camp, Starkey Hearing Foundation and Gallaudet University or by even making a donation to the Delta Zeta Foundation.

So let’s tell our story on #GivingTuesday!

Take a moment this week to plan how you can participate on December 2. And then tell us by tagging @DeltaZetaNatl in your Instagram photos, your Twitter posts and use the #DZGrateful and #GivingTuesday hashtags. We can’t wait to see how Delta Zeta gives back on December 2!

#DZGrateful Challenge

30 Days of Thankful. Thankful November. The Thankful Challenge.

Our newsfeeds have been full of the different ways friends and family acknowledge what they are thankful and grateful for this month. Sometimes inspirational, other times they bring a tear to your eye. But each time people are sharing a little personal piece of themselves and show what is important in their lives. Delta Zeta makes the list and we hear stories of sisterhood and love from our members when they share their thankful posts. 

What are you thankful for because of Delta Zeta? We’d like to know! And we’d like to share our member’s thoughts this month. Share your ideas using #DZGrateful, posting your photos, thoughts and ideas to our Twitter, Facebook or Instagram pages. 

So, how many of you will take the #DZGrateful challenge this month?

Finishing Your Officer Term

Everyone is excited when they start their term in office, but what about finishing up? The effective chapter officer should leave her position better than she found it. This blog post will provide you with some best practices for transitioning out of your officer role.

Your chapter officer transition should also include a meeting with the new officer. Use the date of that meeting as your deadline to organize your position’s materials. Whether they are in a binder or on a jump drive, go through the materials you used in your officer role and delete the old or out of date items and organize the current ones for your successor. Along the same lines of officer resources, if your chapter uses general email boxes for officers, make sure to provide the new officer with the log in information for that email.

Prior to the transition meeting, complete a reflection on your term in office. What worked? What would you have done differently? Are there any “tricks to the trade” that you’d pass along to the new officer? Were there things you wish you had known about the officer role before you started your term? Think about things you would have liked to know as you started this position last year in order to pass that on to the new officer. Anything you can do to make the transition as smooth as possible will help your successor.

Help the new officer prepare her calendar for the near future. Are there dates already set by your campus Panhellenic for recruitment meetings? Is there a national training that she needs to be aware of? Any dates you have on your calendar should be transitioned to the new officer to make sure she doesn’t miss out on anything big.

The best officer transitions are ones which don’t leave the new officers in the position to reinvent the wheel. What are some other ideas you would suggest to have the best officer transition possible?

Preparing to Celebrate #DeltaZeta112

Fall is such an amazing time. Not only are our campuses bustling again after a quiet summer, our collegiate chapters are welcoming in new members and Delta Zeta once again celebrates our founding. This year marks 112 years of sisterhood which was created by six forward thinking young women one fall in 1902. Our Founders had a college experience a lot like many of the hundreds of thousands of members who have come after them. Julia Bishop’s diary documents the founding of Delta Zeta. On September 5, 1902 young Julia was preparing her clothes for school. She tells us that she “cut out gray skirt.” How many of our newest members were preparing their clothes for their big moves to campus in September? And not that much later, on September 21^st, Julia recounts that “after supper we went down to Miss Alfa Lloyd’s to organize sorority.” What an amazing experience to go from packing for college to creating or joining a sorority. And, that is what continues to happen today across North America.

Delta Zeta was incorporated in the State of Ohio on October 24, 1902, which also happened to be Alfa Lloyd’s birthday which was perhaps not a coincidence. Founders Day was first set by the 1912 National Convention and was called a Homecoming. In the early days, it was celebrated by a formal banquet of both collegiate and alumnae members. Delta Zeta members still celebrate Founders Day in much the same way, no matter where they are located. We see the images on Instagram of our collegiate chapters welcoming alumnae back during Homecoming celebrations and the local gatherings of alumnae chapters in cities all over the world, connecting with each other to celebrate your sisterhood is a natural part of honoring our founding. Please share in sharing our sisterhood together this Friday by taking the Founders Day photo challenge by posting a photo of you, or your chapter, proudly celebrating Founders Day wearing your badges to Facebook, Instragram or Twitter with the hashtag #DeltaZeta112.

Delta Zeta’s i Have a Choice Supports National Collegiate Alcohol Awareness Week

Delta Zeta’s initiative to support National Collegiate Alcohol Awareness Week (#NCAAW) is the i Have a Choice campaign. Collegiate chapters undertake campaigns in their local communities and on campus to educate about the dangers of alcohol abuse. The i Have a Choice campaign helps reinforce the idea that everyone has a choice when it comes to alcohol use. It is just as important now, as it was eight years ago with Delta Zeta started this campaign, to educate our members and communities about the healthy choices we can make regarding alcohol. 

October 19-25 Delta Zeta’s chapters are taking to social network feeds to chronicle their efforts in their communities with the i Have a Choice Campaign. Using the hashtag #iHaveAChoice our chapters and members will be spreading important knowledge about alcohol which directly impacts college students. High risk drinking, though decreasing, still impacts our communities. 3,360,000 students between the ages of 18 and 24 drive under the influence of alcohol (Hingson et al., 2009). 599,000 students between the ages of 18 and 24 are unintentionally injured under the influence of alcohol (Hingson et al., 2009). 97,000 students between the ages of 18 and 24 are victims of alcohol-related sexual assault or date rape (Hingson et al., 2009). And 1,825 college students between the ages of 18 and 24 die from alcohol-related unintentional injuries, including motor vehicle crashes (Hingson et al., 2009).

We hope that because of programs like i Have a Choice, we will see continued awareness among college-aged students about their choices relating to alcohol. In 2012, there was a record low of freshman drinking alcohol, a reported 33.4%, down from a high of 73.7% in 1982 (UCLA Higher Education Research Institute, 2012). And the 2010 National Survey on Drug Use and Health reported that 84% of 18-24 year olds are NOT heavy drinkers (U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, 2011).

What will you do to spread awareness about the choices you can make to use alcohol responsibly? Tell us by tweeting @DeltaZetaNatl with #iHaveAChoice.