Brotherhood Retreat Spring 2015 - Love You Like A Bro

One benefit of becoming a brother of the Alpha Phi chapter of Alpha Kappa Psi is the chance to attend our Brotherhood Retreat. The event, which is held once a semester, gives brothers the opportunity to bond with those they may not be close with, especially those they did not pledge with. However, this semester's retreat also opened the floor up to discussion about the state of our chapter and fostered visionary thinking on how to improve for the future.  Below, Brother Summer Slaughter, PC Spring 2014, reflects on her experience:

This past weekend at Alpha Phi’s Brotherhood Retreat, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I had been to other retreats before, but I could tell that this one would be different. This was a group of 30-45 people whom I shared a deep connection with. We’d all gone through the same pledging process and become brothers; now it was time to refortify that connection and get to know each other a little bit better. 

Brotherhood retreat was an experience like no other; we got a chance to rediscover what makes us love this organization so much, while simultaneously thinking of ways to strengthen the brotherhood as a whole. One of my favorite parts of the weekend was when we would all come together and have honest and thoughtful discussions on issues that our chapter has been facing. With our brotherhood having over 140 members, it’s easy for some thoughts and suggestions to get lost, but at brotherhood retreat everyone had a fair chance to voice their opinions. Because of the intimate setting, we were able to come up with tangible and attainable plans of action to remedy those issues, and ultimately make the chapter better. 

Another thing that I enjoyed was when we all had time to write each other “Bro Mail” and explain to different people what we admire/love most about them. Over the course of the weekend, everyone had an envelope with their name on it and if you had something that you wanted to tell that person, you could write them a note and leave it in their “mailbox”. I think that this was a great activity because you never know how much you mean to some people. Being a part of a large organization can make you feel like you have drifted away from some people while growing closer to others. It was great to read how my fellow brothers felt about me, and even greater telling them how special they were to me. Overall, I’d say that this was the most effective Brotherhood Retreat that has been planned since I’ve been in this organization. It emphasized all of the teachings and core values of our organization, and helped us to appreciate each other more. 

Brotherhood. Unity. Integrity. Knowledge. Service.