Pledge Leadership Workshop
Pledge Leadership Workshop (PLW) is an event held in previous terms under Pledge Parents, usually as a requirement to cross. It is usually held near the end of the pledging term, and its nature varies by Pledge Parent. In terms past, PLW would be an event at which Pledge Parents would teach or have actives or alumni teach workshops to develop pledges' leadership skills. Other times, PLW is designated as the portion of Pledge Retreat during which pledges divide into committees they are interested in joining to learn about them. Since Spring 2009, PLW has been an event at which pledges teach workshops on either a topic of the group's choice, or a topic assigned to them by the Pledge Parents. This latest form of PLW is intended to promote pledges' presentation skills, project management skills, teamwork, and more.
Modern PLW
During Spring 2009, each Pledge Group was required to host one 20-30 minute workshop on any given topic at the Pledge Leadership Workshop. Next, in Fall 2009, the Pledge Parents randomly assigned pledge groups to teach a workshop in an area of Leadership, Friendship, or Service. In Spring 2010, PLW was in roughly the same format as in the previous term, but with the intent to attract members from other chapters to attend. As a result, PLW in this term was renamed to Pledge Leadership Summit (PLS).
Chandler Class's PLW was different from previous terms' PLW. There were two separate shifts, one from 9-12, and the second from 12-3, and in each shift were five During Chandler term, Pledge Parents Alex Nguyen and Kat Chan changed PLW so that instead of pledges holding workshops for actives, actives, such as Lynn Nguyen, Kenny Lim, Tracey Lin, and others would hold workshops and bonding activities for Chandlers. They decided that CLW workshops were enough for pledges, and wanted to do something different for PLW. They decided that they wanted the Chandlers to bond more closely, and become more unified as a class. Chandler pledges were also required to do planks after, and Alex and Kat felt that the PLW activities would be a good build-up.
One of the activities, held by Kenny Lim required Chandler pledges to hold a tennis ball (without actually touching the tennis ball) on pieces of string that pledges pulled, and then work together to carry the tennis ball across the rom and onto a pipe without knocking over the pipe or dropping the tennis ball. Another activity, held by Pledge Parent Alex made the all the participating pledges work together. Pledges were divided into four groups, and each had a hula hoop. There was one hula hoop in the middle with 24 balls, and the pledges had to each collect 20 balls into each of their hoops to win. At first, all the pledges scrambled for the balls and tried to grab as many as they could to bring back to their own hoop, while some stayed near their hoop to protect it. Eventually, they realized that they had to each bring their own hoops to put around the center hoop, so that they could ALL win. One group, including pledge Tommy Hoang, tried to bring all the balls in the center hoop to his own group after everyone had decided to share the balls. :)
Another activity, held by Lynn Nguyen made pledges hold a rubber band ring, and each had to let go at exactly the right time so that the ring ended up in a circle drawn on the floor. This taught the pledges that everyone had to cooperate and work together, and if one person messed up, everyone would fail together.