Little Talks

O Canada, our home and native land…..

Those 7 words beginning the national anthem of Canada couldn’t be more true for me. I spent 4 days in Canada over Halloween weekend with my mother and sister. It was ridiculously amazing. There were so many times when Canada literally took my breath away or all I could say was, “Oh…CANADA”. Moving through the first line, I completely identified with “our home and native land”, although I can’t say that I’m Canadian. I am born and raised a Texan, although I feel like Canada is the homeland of my heart for some reason. I guess it’s the cooler weather, the beautiful scenery, the nice people, and of course, the hockey. While in the Vancouver airport, I could already tell that I was meant to live in Canada.

As we walked around downtown, biked through Stanley Park, caught a Canucks game at Rogers Arena and sipped on French Vanilla’s from Tim Horton’s—-I knew I was home.

I won’t bore you with all the details, but the trip to Vancouver was my first trip to Canada. All in all, I would definitely go back. I actually plan on applying for jobs in Canada, and I’ll let you in on a secret…I even researched graduate programs in sport management at Canadian universities. Just for kicks. But hey, who knows where I’ll be at this time next year?

Rogers Arena with my mom and sister after the Canucks-Capitals game. (Canucks won!)

My sister and me at Granville Island—a public market across from downtown Vancouver.

My sister and I tandem-biked around Stanley Park. It was stunning.

Stanley Park—all the leaves changing for autumn. Amazing.

At the top of Grouse Mountain. It’s usually a ski resort in the winter, but they haven’t had enough snowfall yet.

Y’all. I found it. A possible dream job.

Community Relations Coordinato

Your Role: Assist with creation of the Community Relations strategies. Assist in the development of team’s community outreach programs and charitable initiatives. Provide event management for all community relations’ events and activities including Holiday Toy Shopping and Delivery, in-game collection drives, charity partners’ game nights and Cuts for a Cause. Coordinate player appearances for all Community Relations activities. Direct all team autograph sessions. Coordinate and facilitate individual player community programs efforts, including but not limited to budgeting, facilitating, promoting and supervising groups for player programs. Liaison for wives in regards to charitable involvement. Prepare weekly department updates to all major departments, including sales, premium services, media, publications, Foundation, marketing and corporate sponsorships. Collaborate with Marketing and Communications to promote Community Relations initiatives through advertising, broadcast, publicity and in-game assets. Execute all fan experience packages during all home games. Manage Season Ticket and Premium charity ticket program to ensure all tickets are properly distributed to local non-profits. Oversee and maintain charitable partners and hospital contact database. Coordinate and manage I.C.E. School including teacher registrations, lesson plan distribution, student certificate distribution, program expansion and prize fulfillment. Coordinate all charity donations including autographed items, game tickets and fan experience items. Provide content for the “Hub Buzz” database newsletter and provide updates for website. Assist with all grassroots marketing efforts. Recruit, train, and manage all Community Relations interns and game night staff. Collaborate with outside entities for all charitable requests and manage charitable request process. Order premium items and autograph merchandise. All other duties as assigned.

I can so see myself working in as this Coordinator. In a surreal, but ever so clear way.

So you know how Facebook does that thing on the side of your homepage that’s like “This day in 2009…” etc.?

Well today mine informed me that on this day in 2009, I updated my Facebook status to this:

“Hillary Williams is trying to find any job/internship that will get me as close to hockey as possible. Only 22 more days until the NHL season starts!!!”

Well, little did I know that a year later God would provide me with an unpaid internship at the Texas Stars Hockey Club. Also, little did I know that He would provide me with a paid part-time job with the team only after 2 months of interning. I am still working for the Texas Stars today and will continue for the entirety of this season.

He is so good—glad I’m reminded of His provision for me in my life by of all things…… Facebook (who knew?!).

3 weeks is sort of a long time to not blog..right? Well a lot has been happening since my last update. I moved into my house with 7 wonderful women for our senior year, spent a week fully devoted to Ignite Texas—a retreat for freshmen to help them connect with people, local churches & ministries—was a Recruitment Counselor for rush for the past week and a half and started my last first day of school today! Insane things.

The house is great, I live with amazing girls. I can already tell it’s going to be a great last year at the good ol’ University of Texas.

Ignite was mind-blowing….God moved in extraordinary ways in the hearts of freshmen and in the hearts of the Ignite staff. Unfortunately, due to my commitment to work this hockey season, and lack of knowledge in regards to my whereabouts for a year from now, I will not be continuing in Ignite. It breaks my heart, but God blessed me immensely through the community He provided and the ways in which He revealed His glory to us as He moves intentionally on the UT campus. It’s beautiful the way God works all things together for His good. While it’s hard every day due to my own control idol, I try to lay all aspects of my life into His hands instead of falling victim to my own selfish plans. Below is a picture of the group I co-led with another Ignite staffer, Sean Franks. Ignite’s theme this year was board games, so each group took a game and used it to make decorations for our group’s room and our group’s cheer, etc. We were Monopoly so we made all of our counselors and campers mustaches just for fun.

After returning from Ignite, I moved into a hotel with the other Recruitment Counselors for the week. We were put into groups of 4 and assigned about 60 freshmen girls who were coming through rush. My group consisted of me (an Alpha Chi Omega), Elana (Alpha Epsilon Phi), Anna (Alpha Phi) & Kate (Chi Omega) to take care of the freshmen girls with last names Johnson-Lahoda. So we had a chunk of J’s, all the K’s and one L. We got to lead them around the first day of rush and take them to all the houses. The rest of the days our Counselor group was stationed at a sorority house to time the events and make sure they were following all the rules. The picture below is a depiction of what we actually did all day. We also helped the girls when they were torn between choosing one sorority over another (hence the “counsel” part of the word counselor). I spent 2 hours with a girl on the last night who was trying to decide which sorority she liked better…it was exhausting but rewarding because I think she chose the right one for her. It was nice getting to be unbiased and disaffiliated from my chapter so that I could help the freshmen.

Lastly, today was my LAST first day of school! It’s crazy how college has flown by. But I’m ready to tackle my 7 hours (yes, seven…talk about senior year coasting!) and be fully committed to my job at the Texas Stars hockey team. I’m ready for hockey to start up again, but I have to wait until October for actual games. I get to start working again on Friday. This semester I will be taking an Internship Class (basically getting credit for my job), Beginner’s Ballroom Dancing (SO EXCITED!) and Integrated Communication For Sports. I think it’s shaping up to be a great semester!