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This year, Nick and I were in charge of coming up with a chapter display for convention. At first, we had to come up with a theme that would somehow reflect this year’s convention theme, “Bringing it home to the heart of the NCD”. We kept asking ourselves, “What kind of theme is that?” The only thing I could think of is to somehow play off of the “home” theme. So, instead of concentrating on making a wonderful display for Ohio State (of which the theme suggests), we decided to show everyone OUR home.

The concept was simple: make a doll house and fill it with activities our chapter did this year that correspond with rooms in a house. As we began laying out the “rooms”, we discovered a room for Huddle, a room for caroling, a room for studying, a room for Sparty Watch, a room for the pre-season picnic, and the attic became the TBS room.

Once the plans were meticulously drafted, and ran through the blueprint machine, we got to work. We decided to build the house and furniture completely from scratch, rather than going out and purchasing everything. Luckily, we already had oodles of foam core donated, which easily became the construction material of choice.

Well, to make the long story short, once the house was completed, and the naked women were kicked out, we took our masterpiece to Columbus. We were sure our display would win. As soon as we unloaded, we couldn’t believe how many houses

were also being unloaded. Barbie houses, big houses, doll houses, and foam core houses were all being unloaded and set up on the display tables to create a subdivision of the gaudiest houses ever. Apparently, this subdivision had NO ordinances against trash in the driveway and bright colors. So we found our plot of land only to discover we had a noisy and obnoxious next door neighbor. I still have no idea why they named their Easter basket the “Big House”.

Later that weekend, I attended the chapter display workshop, where I got to hear the other chapter’s stories on their real estate ventures. Needless to say, our chapter display did not win the competition. Maybe it was because we didn’t have a bathroom in our home, or even a kitchen, BUT our house was certainly well insulated. The best part of our chapter display is that we didn’t have to pay anything for a 3 bedroom, no bathroom, no kitchen bungalow! What a deal!