Diversity Through Song
One of the most fun things about being on the MPI Texas Hill Country Board is getting together face-to-face for our summer and mid-winter board retreats. The first one is a great opportunity to lay out the year and, most importantly, it is a chance for everyone to get to know each other. Additionally, we get to experience one of our great MPI members’ destinations! This past June we were hosted by Visit Salado and enjoyed two days at the beautiful Inn on the Creek and also experienced a delicious dinner at the Stagecoach Inn Restaurant. 

During the retreat we had several icebreaker/get- to-know you activities, one of which was learning what everyone’s baseball “walk-up song” is. If you’ve been to a Rangers game, you’ll know that each Rangers player has a snippet of a song of their choice that they play in the ballpark when they walk up to bat, and usually a song that gets the home crowd going. I had everyone send me their songs in advance and made a playlist and we had a contest for everyone to try and guess each other’s walk up song. We played them during our breaks on day one and began day two by playing each song for a few seconds then the corresponding board member stood up and we all checked our lists to see if we had a match. It was a fun and interesting exercise to find out a little bit about everyone and we made some fun observations: 

• We had two members with songs by Imagine Dragons

• We had three country artists, three rock artists, and several pop songs

• Our songs spanned over 40 years! They ranged from 1970 to 2022. 

Each song told a bit of a story, and included “Raise Your Glass,” “Don’t Look Back,” “About Damn Time,” “Sounds Good to Me,” “God Blessed Texas,” “Happy,” and “Friends in Low Places”. The musical variety of everyone’s walk up song choice made for lively conversation and a great experience getting to know a little bit more about our board. It speaks to the diversity of, not just our board of directors, but the chapter itself.  

When you attend the next event, take a moment to look around the room. You will be amazed at our chapter’s diversity among its members. We have people from all types of associations, corporations, and suppliers with CVB’s, hotels and many other convention and conference-related businesses. It is truly one of the unique offerings that make MPI a great business-to-business organization to be a part of. Don’t forget to check the chapter events calendar today and register for our next event!