In this article, five former officers share what they think every officer should do to prepare their chapter for the new year.

Joseph Toth, Maryland-College Park ‘14
Former president, former chaplain

“Recruitment is one of the most important things you
can focus on, especially over winter break. Every
chapter, deferred recruitment or not, recruits in the
spring. So over the break you really want to have
everyone in your chapter focused on it.”

Joshua Ivan Santos-Heard, MIT ‘14  
Former president, former vice president of recruitment,
former vice president of programming 

“Winter break is a good time for evaluating your
Balanced Man Program. Especially if you’ve been doing
things the same way for a while, it might be good to
bring something better to the table.”

Matthew Littman, Ohio State ‘14 
Former vice president of programming, current president 

“Make sure you have your chapter’s budget in place and
it aligns with the calendar. I’ve seen some chapters where
all they have is a set amount for programming. Have a
conversation about where the money is going. The break
is a good time to have that conversation.”

Nathan Napolitano, John Carroll ‘14 
Former vice president of programming 

“With CLA just around the corner, be sure  to meet with
other chapters who are  successful. Facilitators are coming
in who  have more experience, too. Find different creative
outlets to pull ideas that you could incorporate in your
chapter.”

Zach Stull, Nebraska ‘14 
Former president 

“Have some continuity with ideas from the previous year
so they don’t fall dead. There’s a lot of good ideas that go
from one exec term and then completely die because no
one is there to carry them over.”