Women's History Wednesday

Good morning from Virginia! Katie here welcoming you back for another Women's History Wednesday. As some of you know, we are spending each Wednesday during the month of March honoring a woman in our lives who has inspired us creatively. Cheryl started us off this month sharing the story of her aunt who taught her about Zentangles and last week Heather shared the story of her mother's creative ideas surrounding children. It is my pleasure this week to share with you the inspiration behind my work as a supervisor of undergraduate college students.

When I was an undergraduate at Bellarmine University in Louisville, Kentucky I had the pleasure of being a resident advisor in a freshman residence hall where I worked/lived on a floor with 40 female freshman students. My supervisor was the Hall Director, Shingi Nyamwanza. Three years later, now that I am a Hall Director in a residence hall, I find myself referring back to many ideas and tactics that Shingi used with us. The best thing about these ideas are their ability to be applied in a variety of arenas. This might include your work/role as a supervisor, Girl Scout troop leader, mother, sports coach, or PTA member.

1. The Accountability Jar. I'm not sure if this is what Shingi called it, but that's what I'm going to call it for today. This was a jar in which Shingi had each of us take a slip of paper and on it we were to write one duty or "chore" that we would like someone else on staff to complete for us on one side and our name on the other. Then we put all the slips of paper into the jar, and it stayed in her office. If someone was late to a staff meeting they had to pull a slip of paper from this jar and then complete this task for the person who wrote it. It was her creative way of keeping us accountable.

2. The High 5 Award. This is an idea that I have implemented with my staff this year. Each week, a different RA on staff would be awarded the High 5 Award. It was an outline of a hand on a piece of paper. On each of the fingers there was a different reason listed as to why that staff member had made a difference in the building that week. Some reasons might include: covering a night of sitting desk duty, helping with a roommate conflict, putting on a great program, etc. If I was the recipient during week 1, I was then responsible for giving the award to another staff member during week 2. I love this idea because it was not awarded by the supervisor, but instead it is awarded among equal members of the staff. I also love it because it is very inexpensive but can be very meaningful!

Thank you to Shingi for the impact she has made on my life. Hopefully she will check in with us today and make a post!

Before we close out for the day, we have one thing left to cover....Highs, Lows, and Ahas! As is our tradition here at Highlowaha, I ask that each of you take some time to share your High (best thing), Low (worst thing), and Aha (something you learned) from the past month in the comment section today. Beginning this new year on Highlowaha, we are going to add a new component to our tradition on these days. As we stated at the beginning of the new year, we would like to invite each of you to take a seat with us at the table each day to share in the creativity of this community. In keeping with this goal, we would like to invite one of you to join us each month to share your High, Low, and Aha within the post for the day. This individual will be randomly selected through the postcards in the Random Acts of Kindness box. (Not sure what I'm referring to? Check the post from 2/24) Each month on the 18th, we will draw a card from the box and this person will be our special guest for the following month. So, later today we will pull a name to be our guest for April! If you still need to get your postcard in the box, send it off in the mail to the following address:

Claudia Beeny
4012 Harvestwood Ct
Grapevine, TX 76051

For the month of March, we have invited Shingi to be the guest at our table and she has shared her High, Low, and Aha with me so I can post it here for all of you to see.

High - Spring is almost here! I love DC in the springtime :-)
Low - One of my closest girlfriends got laid off - I feel so helpless.
Aha - (so many this past month)- Life is all about building relationships. Its more about who you know not what you know... ( Sad but true. I could argue that that's also my low)

Don't forget to share yours with us in the comment section so that you can go into the hat to win a Highlowaha t-shirt with your favorite Ray on it!

Announcements:

Shamrock Shakes: Below are Claudia, Cheryl, and their boys enjoying some traditional Shamrock Shakes at the Beeny household on St. Patty's Day! Take special note of the McDonald's straws. As we know (via Claudia) all shakes are better when had through a McDonald's straw.
Cookbook: Don't forget today is the last day to submit recipes to Tera for the first ever HLA cookbook. Email them to tmichalski05@jcu.edu.

Women who Take the Cake: Don't forget about this easy way to honor a woman in your life. Send nominations by 5pm today to highlowaha218@gmail.com. Send a paragraph of 200 words or less describing why this woman "takes the cake". The woman we choose will be presented a cake on your behalf.