From our ASB family to you and yours, Happy Thanksgiving! We are so grateful for everyone involved in our wonderful program, from site leaders to participants to the organizations we work with and the communities we serve. Thank you all for making Vanderbilt ASB a rich and meaningful experience for so many. We hope everyone is enjoying this time with family and friends, and has a safe and happy remainder of the break.

-ASBoard

Hey everyone!

Apologies for the long wait between updates. We’ve all been super-busy reading applications, interviewing potential ASB-ers, and placing applicants on their sites. After a long weekend full of post-it grids and some elaborate planning, we now have participants on every site!

This is the best part of the year, when this organization goes from having 84 members (72 site leaders + 12 board members) to having 400+ almost overnight. We live for it and hope you share in our enthusiasm!

So, if you applied for ASB, stay with your phone tonight, because you will be getting a call from someone. We can’t wait until Reveal on Sunday night!

-ASBoard

Hey all–

Can’t get enough shenanigans, ASBuckets, love triangles, and magical things? Then you’re in luck, because we’ve posted the board video you saw at Site Leader Retreat!

Enjoy!

-ASBoard

As experienced ASB-ers all know, each year we pick a theme for ASB. Besides being something cool to wear on a t-shirt and a good excuse to blast a different song in particular on repeat, we love having a theme because it gives us a sense of purpose and direction in thinking about what we’re doing by taking part in ASB. Education and reflection are two of the three pillars the alternative break mission is built on, and having a theme unifies these two ideas in a really nice, visible way.

All this is to say that we have a theme, and that theme is

STIR IT UP!

This year on ASB, we’re stirring things up: stirring up our community, ourselves, and our world. ASB is all about challenging the status quo–that’s why we’re Alternative Spring Break. So grab a hand mixer, blender, or swizzle stick, and let the spooning jokes commence!

-Your Board

The day is finally here! Participant applications for Alternative Spring Break 2010 are due at 5:00 p.m. in the Community Partnership House behind Branscomb. Put the final touches on your essays, double-check what you ranked, attempt to bribe a Board member with baked goods (kidding…but we like cookies) and get those apps IN!

It’s official: Alternative Spring Break 2010 is amazing in 72 new ways. Site Leaders, thanks for an amazing retreat! You’re all wonderful and will do an incredible job with your sites. Also, you look fantastic in red:

Then, as if this weekend couldn’t get any better, Sunday was ASBBQ on Alumni Lawn! The SLs showcased their mad trifolding skills and a lot of macaroni was eaten. Hopefully we generated even more interest in ASB, or at least helped applicants make more informed choices as they ranked their sites.

Eagerly anticipating the applications deadline and starting the next phase of ASB: reading applications and interviewing applicants!

-Your Board

Hey everyone! If you would like to find out more about this ASBiznaz, we’re holding an info session this Wednesday, October 7, from 6-8 pm in the Commons Living Room. We’ll have a visually-appealing slide show, tri-fold, applications, and ASBoard members galore to answer all your questions. So ASBe there or be square!

Here at ASB, we believe in the value of knowing your destination, even though the journey is the most important part. So to help you on your journey, we’re posting a link here that gives you directions and a map to the Community Partnership House, or the CPH, the headquarters for all things ASB. So fill out those apps, grab a friend, and get ready to start your ASB journey by turning in your application to the CPH by 5 pm on October 14!

Take me there!

After a grueling two weeks of applications, interviews, post-it grids, and zombie apocalypses, we have officially finished placing our 2009-2010 slate of ASB site leaders! We want to thank everyone who applied, who showed up on time to their interviews, who made us laugh, cry, and occasionally get a little weirded out in the written application, and who saved their hypothetical participants from a hypothetical zombie attack during the group interview. You made our week as memorable and fun as it was long and complex.

We will be calling everyone who applied on Tuesday night, sometime after 8:00 p.m., so be on the lookout for a random phone call from a number you may or may not recognize. If you’ve been selected, the Site Leader Retreat will be all day on October 10th. More information on that to come in the next few days, so check back.

Also, since there is no sleep or lag time in ASB-world, it’s now time to get excited for PARTICIPANT APPLICATIONS! They come out TOMORROW! Tell your friends, tell your hallmates, your sorority sisters or fraternity brothers, strangers on the Vandy Van, the cute girl or guy at the party you’re desperately trying to make conversation with…it’s all good.

We’re so excited and hope you are too!

-ASBoard

EDIT: For more photos of Placements Weekend FUN, check out our gallery!

Hey everyone–

As of 5:00 this afternoon, the process of reviewing all of your wonderfully insightful and impassioned site leader applications has begun! Thank you to everyone who submitted an application, came to our interest meetings and made us feel important, or just heard us out as we shamelessly and aggressively recruited you to apply. We hope it’s paid off

We’ll spend the rest of this week reading the applications, and will begin the interviews on Monday, September 21st. We’ll let you know shortly when to come in for your individual and group interviews.

A special shoutout in advance should go to our fabulous Placements Co-Chairs, Lauren Bruns and Charlotte Hassen, whose work is just beginning. If you see them, hug them. No, seriously.

-ASBoard