A Busy and Productive Week at DAR Headquarters

As you can imagine, things have been quite busy at DAR Headquarters this week with the October Executive Committee Meetings and leading up to the National Board of Management meeting among our many other Board events (not to mention working around some challenges posed by the government shutdown!) . Our meetings were very productive and I look forward to telling you more about some of the exciting decisions that come out of this October Board. But today I want to tell you a little bit about the special events that made the Board week so educational and fun!

More than 100 DAR officers, state regents and national chairmen were able to take part in Leadership Workshops which were divided into three different topic areas. The first workshop was “You Are Superwoman! Using Your Super Powers to Solve Sticky Situations,” which explored different ways to diffuse tense situations and used skits to show examples. “Fundraising Fundamentals” was another workshop that was offered to share ideas and encourage discussions about fundraising initiatives for chapters. The third workshop was titled: “There’s a New Kid on the Block! Getting to Know the Celebrate America! Committee.” This presentation helped explain more about the Celebrate America! initiative which encourages members to perform community service and report those hours so we can meet our collective goal of 1 million service hours. Be sure to visit the Celebrate America! committee page to learn more!

On Thursday evening we celebrated the opening of the fascinating new DAR Museum exhibition, “Creating the Ideal Home, 1800-1939: Comfort and Convenience in America.” Special thanks go to Heidi Campbell-Shoaf, DAR Museum Director and Chief Curator, and the exhibition’s curator, Patrick Sheary, for putting together such a well done and interesting exhibit. Our museum staff also did a fantastic job of expediting the finishing touches in the gallery so that we could open the exhibition two days earlier than planned in order to accommodate visitors to DC who are impacted by the government shutdown (which includes the closing of all Smithsonian museums).  I hope during your next visit to DAR Headquarters you will be sure to see it.

Today, members of the National Board of Management, as well as Headquarters employees, wore pink attire in support of breast cancer awareness month. We took a great group photo out on the steps of Constitution Hall and I hope you all will be “tickled pink” to see it!

The National Chairmen’s Forum was both humorous and educational. They put together a wonderful skit with the theme “DAR Goes to the Movies.” Each chair proved to be a wonderful actress and all of their skits highlighted the goals of their committees.

This afternoon we participated in our most touching activity of the Board week. We all walked from DAR Headquarters down the street to the World War II Memorial to welcome 40 WWII veterans who were flown to DC as part of the Honor Flight program so they can visit their memorial. It was such an honor for us to greet these American heroes and express our appreciation for all that they have done for our country.

If you can’t tell from this brief overview, this week has been very full and so productive. I have so many great stories and updates to give you but I couldn’t fit them all in this week so I promise to tell you more about them in the next few weeks of blog posts!

And the fun never stops in DAR! Tomorrow we set off on the DAR Schools Bus Tour immediately following the National Board of Management meeting. I look forward to the trip and will try to give you updates on our stops along the way. I hope you all will also follow along with the tour on the DAR Facebook page!