A few weekends ago, I was blessed to be able to spend time with our junior members at TSDAR Juniors’ retreat in Murfreesboro. Planned by Karen Maynard, Middle Tennessee Vice Chair, and implemented by State Junior Chair Jennifer Thomas and the rest of her amazing team, the Juniors retreat has become a favorite event for our younger members and pages each year.
A junior member is a full DAR member between the ages of 18-36. They can serve the chapter, state, and National societies in any capacity that they are eligible to serve. These young women can also be presented the Chapter or State Outstanding Junior Award for work done as a DAR member. I proudly served as National Chair of the Junior Membership committee from 2013-2016, and the retreat began during that time under the Thomas Administration as a way for our Juniors to begin to create relationships with each other while learning about the work of our DAR committees. To this day, TSDAR retreats are part service, part education, and full fun.
Hotel rooms were provided Friday night for those coming in due to travel, with the first service project beginning Saturday morning. This year the service project was park clean up and planting of trees at Stones River Park, adjacent to Stones River Battlefield. Three Dogwood trees were planted, with one as a memorial to Rebekah Lemley, our 2018 Outstanding Junior who tragically passed this spring just after State Conference. I was pleased to learn a second tree was planted in my honor, with the third to represent the Juniors themselves. After the trees were planted, the attendees had a class on water conservation and testing.
After a morning of hard work, the Juniors headed back for lunch and some down time before classes started. I was happy to be able to join them for sessions on protocol, paging, DAR on a budget and the Outstanding Junior contest. A rock painting craft followed dinner with plans for the rocks to be used to mark the trees planted earlier in the day. And who could not have loved the adorable firefly cookies that were provided for our sweet treat or the dogwood symbol junior t-shirts, both which show the depth of planning used for the weekend.
The day ended with an open question and answer session with me on any and all topics – a throwback to my Junior Membership Chair days. Any opportunity I have to mentor our younger members is welcomed. The next morning we participated in a devotional prepared by Karen based on my theme scripture. I was moved by many of the connections she made to our service and Eccl.3:1-8. After the devotional our Juniors created a One in a Million video to post on the NSDAR and TSDAR Facebook pages. This social media campaign is designed to draw attention to the soon to be announced one millionth member to join DAR. In Tennessee we are kicking off our own One in a Million – Meet our Members campaign on our public Facebook page. If you would like to participate please reach out to rebeccaprvaughn@gmail.com for more details or see the announcement on our Tennessee DAR Members Facebook page. We would love to highlight members from every chapter in Tennessee.
The date and location of the retreat was selected to allow participants to attend the bell ringing at the Capitol before returning home and many of the Juniors joined us before
heading back home. I hope if you are a Junior or page you will considering joining us next year for the retreat.
In Service, Cecile
