[15455] in APO News
APO National Convention, 12/27-12/30, Anaheim, CA (the big email)
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Joshua Oreman)
Fri Oct 5 10:54:51 2012
From: Joshua Oreman <oremanj@MIT.EDU>
Date: Fri, 5 Oct 2012 10:54:22 -0400
To: apo-news@mit.edu
Hi folks,
As you've probably heard many many times by now, the biennial APO
national convention is occurring this year right after Christmas, from
the evening of December 27th through the evening of the 30th, in
Anaheim, CA (next to Disneyland, in the Los Angeles area). You should
come, because it'll be awesome! The purpose of this email is to give
some concrete details about what will happen, why it's awesome, how
much it will cost, and how much of that the chapter's likely to be
able to subsidize. (As always, if you want to go but don't feel you
can afford it, talk to me or Rachel or Ellen, we may be able to work
some additional magic.)
If you want to come to Nationals:
- register online at
https://www4292.ssldomain.com/patriotsoftware/APO/Registration/RegisterPers=
on1.asp
- save your receipt so you can get reimbursed (fully or partially,
depending on how we allocate and how many people go) from the
chapter's layaway fund
- *reply to this email!* so I can include you in hotel and
transportation logistics
If you aren't able to commit yet but you think it sounds interesting,
you should still email me! Let me know what you're unsure about; maybe
I can clear it up for you.
Registration never closes, but it becomes more expensive after
November 8th, and banquet tickets might sell out after then.
More general information online:
http://www.apo.org/leadershipdevelopment/nationalconvention
WHAT WILL HAPPEN: The raison-d'=EAtre of the convention is a legislative
session; the voting delegates each chapter elects vote on, and in many
ways shape, amendments to the National Bylaws and other documents that
control APO's policies and structures on a national level. But that
doesn't mean the legislative stuff is the only thing going on - far,
far from it! There will be tons of workshops (like the sort of thing
you'd see at a Conclave, but in many cases more in-depth or
specialized), every APO LEADS course except Serve (they can't do Serve
because it takes a whole weekend), a Fellowship Banquet and Awards
Banquet (majorly tasty food and classy ambiance), many service
opportunities including service-to-the-fraternity things like "do a
security shift for the hotel" or "run messages between delegates on
the legislative floor" (none of this is required, but especially when
you get a bunch of friends together to do it, you'd be surprised how
fun it is!), and all the awesome fellowship both scheduled and non
that you get when you put 2,000+ APO brothers in one place. This is
not remotely an exhaustive list; if you come you won't lack for
interesting things to do (and if you do, well, there's Disneyland
around the corner!). (I seem to like parentheses today.)
WHY IT'S AWESOME: What, the previous paragraph hasn't convinced you of
that already? Basically, most of the same reasons Conclaves are
awesome, but on a much larger scale. Because it's fun. Because you get
to spend lots of time in an APO setting with your brothers from MIT.
Because you'll meet a bunch of people from not-MIT, and discover that
lots of them are actually pretty cool. Because you get to see
firsthand how people from other chapters do things, which might give
you ideas for things you'd like to do back home. Because it's a
super-concentrated dose of APO. Because it's fun. You get the idea.
:-)
HOW MUCH IT WILL COST (before subsidies): Until November 8,
registration for the convention plus both banquets is $175. Hotel
rooms are $99 a night plus tax, and with two double beds each room
fits four people reasonably, so the total cost is about $100 per
person per convention. Add to this whatever you spend feeding yourself
for breakfast, lunch, and on the non-banquet nights dinner, and
whatever it costs you to get to Los Angeles.
HOW MUCH ALPHA CHI WILL PAY FOR: We have a layaway fund of $1600 to
subsidize brothers' expenses in getting to the National Convention.
The more people who come, the less far this will go, but it's
certainly a considerable amount no matter what. We'll be voting at an
upcoming chapter meeting on how we'd like to distribute this between
registration, banquet, hotel, and transportation expenses, but to give
an idea, the 2010 layaway fund (which was 3/4 the size) covered hotel
rooms and banquet costs for everyone, and registration costs for
voting delegates, in a year when 8 actives and pledges came to
Nationals.
Yeah, it's over Christmas break. Yeah, it's far away for many of you,
and kinda expensive. But it's a great time, and better the larger a
delegation we have. I hope I'll see a good handful of you there. :-)
Yours in Leading Friends to SoCal,
Josh
