Once again, the ITO had the opportunity to come together to see each other at the EDTA Home Office located in Cincinnati, OH just this last weekend. Our travels started early in the morning and, slowly but surely, we were all reunited one by one in the CVG airport baggage claim. An odd place to reunite, but hey, we make due! We set off to the hotel, and from there headed to the Home Office where we had the opportunity of sitting down with each department of EDTA. Shortly through the meeting, fellow ITO, Brittany Smith and I excused ourselves for a short photography session with David LaFleche (the Director of Membership) for all the wonderful graduation gear available for thespains in the Thespain Store! Check it out and a very big thanks to Mr. LaFleche for making us feel like we were with Tyra Banks! When we got back we continued our meeting with the wonderful staff of EDTA and soon enough set off to have dinner with the whole Board of Directors! (but not before ice cream of course!) After a wonderful dinner, we headed back to our hotel for a night of rest to prepare for the next day!
Saturday morning we jumped out of bed and headed over to present to the Board of Directors. It was a wonderful presentation about the great progress the ITS is making, and we left headstrong with some wonderful ideas for the students of ITS. After grabbing a quick lunch with our adult advisors (Staples and Swils) we headed back to our hotel where we greeted some wonderful student leaders who were eager to learn about the fundamentals of leadership. It was a wonderful workshop, and as we saw them off, we had dinner and began working on whats to come in Lincoln this summer!
Much to our pleasure, we spent a majority of our Sunday with Ms. Diane Carr and we talked all about the amazing things to come for the state chapters and ITF this summer. We spent more time developing all of our wonderful ideas for ITF this summer, and thanks to the help of Jimmy T (videographer extroidinaire) we filmed a welcome video to the new student leadership program for the China Chapter overseas. I specifically would like to extend a special thanks to all of the wonderful departments of EDTA that met with us over the weekend in Cincinnati; we wouldn't be doing all this wonderful work without your help! It was such a great first and last experience in Cincinnati and I can't wait to see all of their shining faces in Lincoln this summer!
Au revoir Thespians,
Austin Norsworthy
ITO At-Large