Did you see 6 girls take over Cincinnati in matching polos and ballerina shoes? Oh, you didn't? Man, I was sure that would be the front page story on every newspaper. Oh well! Over the past weekend, the
ITO Gals all got back together in the beautiful city of Cincinnati, Ohio. As a Dallas girl, I never get to to go up north much, but oh my was it a treat!. I was delighted to see some of my favorite people in the entire world,Staples, Swilz, and EdTA's one and only Director of Chapters and Communities, Diane Carr. You don'r realize how much you miss a group of people until you are all together again. After a quick lunch and a few reunion hugs, we left our hotel in Kentucky (yes, we switched states every morning which was super cool) and went up to Ohio. We
were all looking forward to a weekend of hard work at EdTA's Home
Office, and the hard work truly paid off.
I was so delighted to be back with the EdTA Staff that I had spent much time with the previous weekend at JFEST, but I was also ecstatic to meet some new faces! The bome office building is a piece of art all of it's own, no wonder so much magic happens there! Those hand carved moldings must do something special to your mind. My favorite part was of course at the top of the tower known as the ITO Clubhouse. Later we would leave our mark there
by creating a sign for our ITO board, signing it, and putting it up
with the past ITO signs. We were treated that evening with a wonderful dinner full of great company, great stories, and great food. We ended the night off with a stop to Cincinnati's iconic tourist destination.
Saturday
morning we were able to deliver a presentation to the board about Theatre In Our
Schools and our progress throughout this year. It was so wonderful to be able to work with the adult board and combine our minds to really gather some wonderful tactics for our many initiatives. Following the presentation the ITO got to treat ourselves with dessert before lunch with ice cream from Grater's. In the
afternoon we had the wonderful opportunity to open our eyes and hearts with Jumpstart Theatre, a program
created by EdTA to start theatre in underprivileged middle schools by
training teachers to become theatre educators. The most memorable part of the whole trip was how moving it was to witness teachers experience theatre in
this way for the first time. We finished the day by recording our ITO Application video,
with help from past ITO Katie Ferchen. It is always nice getting to have some fun and share some stories with someone who has traveled the same path.
Sunday was a day of planning. The ITO are so excited for all that we have in store at Nationals. On
Monday, our lastl day, we finished up with our meetings, and met with
any EdTA staff members we had not yet met, as well as some that we had new ideas for. Eventually we wrapped up and headed off to the airport for a few final laughs. We will all be taking over Arts Advocacy Day in D.C. coming up next week! I can't believe how quickly this year is coming to a close, but I am soaking up every minute of it. See y'all in Lincoln!