I had the best weekend in Cincinnati with the fellow ITO! It was time for the midyear meeting at the EdTA Home Office. We all flew in around lunchtime on Friday the 16th, and gave each other the biggest hugs at the airport due to the fact the last time everyone was together was Broadway Flea in September!
After catching up a bit, it was time for our many meetings at the Home Office! We were greeted by Mrs Diane Carr who was smiling widely. It was lovely to see her again. We all settled in the board room, and had meetings with each team of the Educational Theatre Association: Publications, Marketing and Development, Community, Support Services, Advocacy, Accounting, and Events/Education. It was so great to match faces with names from constant emails! There are great things in the making for Thespians, and I cannot wait for everything to be released!
That night, we had a lovely dinner with the EdTA Board and Staff downtown. I was able to reconnect with past reps and also get to know the personal sides of the staff which was sweet. We have amazing supporters of Educational Theatre all around the nation!
Saturday morning, we all woke up early to make sure we were prepared for our board presentation. It went so well! We talked to the EdTA board about all that our job entails and told stories about our travels. It was nice to reflect on the first half of our year and get excited for the final half.
After our presentation, we headed over to Tucker’s Restaurant in downtown Cincinnati to fill up on food. They had a real deal jukebox that anyone could play music on for free, and to top it off, delicious food. Thanks Ms Diane for the great suggestion! Once we left Tucker’s, it began to snow. Elam and I were quite excited because in our states, we don’t get much of it. (TX and GA) Estee rolled her eyes and laughed at us because she’s always getting snow in Denver.
That Saturday night was incredibly productive: we finished filming and editing our ITO Application video in less than 24 hours! It was awesome.
On Sunday, we met with Sandra Lundgren of Marketing and Marion Combs of Development/Educational Theatre Foundation and got to hear about all the initiatives EdTA has been working on. We got to voice our opinion about social media and also hear about the importance of the Educational Theatre Foundation.
Sunday night we got the treat to go to Ms Diane’s home and have an ITO Game Night! It was pretty intense- we had some tough competition in Clue. Elam almost won, but of course, Ms Diane outsmarted his sleuthing skills. After that, we wrapped up with a game of scrabble slam. I didn’t want to leave (mostly because her dogs were the sweetest!!!).
Unfortunately, it was time for the final full day at the home office! We met with David LaFleche to discuss merchandise, Hans Weichart to give him a personal presentation about ITO, Julie Cohen-Theobald and to share some of our stories and experiences thus far, Doug Berlon to answer his fun questions, and finally, Christina Teed to talk about STO. It was a blast that unfortunately came to an end.