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2013 Camp Q

Saturday, August 17th was the perfect day for Camp Q. We had ten students from various programs join together to experience camp Quota style. Pat was gracious enough to let us use her house, yard and pool again. The “campers” worked on a service project; stapling cards to earplugs. They swam, cooked hot dogs over an open fire (it was a fire pit and a grill, but hey, it was still cooking outside), made bead projects, played games, had fun with a photo booth, made s’mores and had a great time making news friends and memories.

Here are a few photos from the day:

The entire “camp”

roasting hot dogs

Maureen sitting in the shade with a four legged friend

 Kath and Kim observe the bead project table. Most of the campers made bracelets, a few made necklaces.

Bo, Amy and Anastasia at the photo booth.

Kath helps the boys make their bead projects.

 The girls on the right throw ping pong balls into the buckets on the heads of the girls on the left.

Kath helps Victor sting his beads.

CJ and Martel enjoy their s’mores.

Carlos roasts his marshmallow to a perfect golden brown.

Katelyn and Anastasia pick up penne noodles with spaghetti noodles. No hands!

CJ steadies the bucket on his head.

Campers eat in the shade.

 

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A message from Yvonne

At our meeting last Thursday night, Yvonne Babe (our District 20 Governor) spoke about three ways to rev up our club. She is very proud that Grand Rapids is already doing these, but urged us to strive to find news ways to follow these three tips.

Launch A JQ (Junior Quota) Club

We have one of 43 JQ clubs in the entire Quota organization! Saturday, we held a “day camp” experience. Check back to see pictures of the fun we had sharing with our JQ members.

Spice up Club Service projects

Create new interest in the club by both current members and recruits by planning new service projects. Clubs around the world are doing this. Yvonne spoke about a couple of clubs, one in the Netherlands that changes their service projects every five years!

Don’t forget to check out www.quota.org. Our international website has many ideas and anyone can check it out! Each Quota member was assigned a special sign-in (Emily has that information or you may request it through Q.I.) but don’t be afraid to go to the website and search on your own. The Quotarian news magazine archives are a great place to search for new ideas. Our club is always open to new ideas. Contact Kim or Kathy F. to find out how you can share your brilliant service project!

Keep it Simple and Flexible

Quota clubs are changing and being proactive pays benefits in the form of happier members, more recruits, and a club with a brighter future. Finding ways that our club can become simplified and flexible may help improve retention of members, increased recruitment, and a happier club!

Quota has its eyes on the future. The way we volunteer, communicate and stay involved in our community is changing. We need to be open to change and think about how we can reach out to people who are too busy for regular meetings, want to volunteer to make a difference, and have fun.

Quota of GR

We are working hard to find new ways to reach out; this blog and our Facebook page are two ways you can share what we do with friends and family. They don’t have to be living in Grand Rapids to keep up with our fundraisers or service projects.

Be sure to invite friends to our monthly meetings. We are making a difference and we need to be sure that we are letting everyone we know how big of a difference we make!

And remember, if you can’t make it to a meeting, check here to see what you missed! This is a quick and easy way to see what’s going on in our club!

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August 2013 President’s Message

You may know that I’ve been out of commission for a while and am working hard to play catch up. So, rather than come up with my own message for August, I will use the words of one of the Influencers that I follow on LinkedIn–Sallie Krawcheck. I hope you get as much from it as I did. Kim
My (New) Third Very Simple Rule of Networking
August 05, 2013
I recently wrote a post on My Two Very Simple Rules for Networking. They are:
1) Meet one new person in my area of interest every month, or significantly deepen an existing relationship.
2) Do something nice for someone in my network every week.
Based on the comments from LinkedIn readers, I am adding a third rule:
3) Make sure that I am spending time with professionals who are different from me.
At an extreme, if my network is made up solely of female financial services professionals of my generation, who all hail from the south, I will likely feel very comfortable with them. And I will likely enjoy my time with them. And I will no doubt learn from them.
But at some point, this will become an echo chamber of similar-enough experiences and perspectives.
Some of my most meaningful new connections over the past few years have been with professionals from different industries and different parts of the country from me. And my most valuable may have been with entrepreneurs who are a couple of decades younger than me, who possess a significantly different perspective.
Research shows that we are all most comfortable networking with (and working with) people who are like us. But just as the most successful management teams bring complementary strengths to the table, so the most meaningful professional networks do as well….even if it takes a bit more effort.
Sallie Krawcheck

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