BCA Carolinas

Growth and Resilience During the Pandemic

By Ni Colins Doh

President, Carolinas Chapter

The Carolinas Chapter is made up of North and South Carolina. Membership continues to grow steadily. We have 15 registered members. During the pandemic we did not collect local chapter dues from members. We also switched to holding meetings via Zoom. In-person meetings were resumed in the Fall of 2021 and local chapter membership registrations in January 2022. As of April 2022 we have fifteen registered members. We are quite certain this number will continue to grow. In fact, we are growing not only in numbers but in family sizes too. We’ve had five babies in the last two years and are looking forward to welcoming three more in 2022. Ahem! The Carolinas are fertile ground.

Fun Activities During the Pandemic

During the pandemic Bali Carolinas continued meeting via zoom. We came up with fun games to play on Zoom like riddles and jokes - Ŋkwalè e? Lèŋkwa.

Outside of Zoom, we had other fun activities we did as a group. One of these activities was the ‘step challenge’. The idea came about as we sought ways to keep our members fit and active. Using a step counting device like a Fitbit watch or even a phone, we tracked our daily steps and posted these to motivate others. We gave prices to the highest steppers. Our senior citizens also took part in this challenge. It was a lot of fun.

Constitution

Crafting our local constitution has been a work in progress. We started working on it right before the pandemic hit. As a result of the pandemic, the constitution was put on hold until we could physically meet and complete it. The constitution was finally completed and adopted in December 2021.

Challenges

Some of the challenges we face as a chapter are travel time to meetings and conducting projects back home. Bali Carolinas spans across two states so sometimes some of our members travel 2-3 hours to attend an in-person meeting. We have also faced some challenges with finding a project to do back home. The pandemic and current political challenges at home have made this quite hard.

Big shout out to our leadership – both new and old!

We voted in a new executive in December 2021, and they took office in January 2022

Shout out to the outgoing executive, who, under the leadership of Ni Nyugha Caspa weathered the pandemic and kept the group growing strong. We held meetings via zoom and found fun activities to do together even when we could not meet physically! Bali Carolina stayed motivated and passionate and came out much stronger after the pandemic!

Shout out to the new executive, who, under the leadership of Ni Collins Doh, hit the ground running! One of the first things they’ve done is to create a hosting calendar that spanned 14 months – from Jan 2022 to Feb 2023. This has immediately resolved an on-going challenge we had always faced with finding a place to host.

Chapter executives 2021 – 2022

• President: Ni Colins Doh • Vice President: Ni Yvonne Tah • Secretary General: Ma Evangeline Caspa • Financial Secretary: Ni Claude Sema • Treasurer: Ma Emma Foncham • Cultural Secretary: Ni Nelson Sema • Chief Whip: Ni Kevin Nubiga