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St. Katherine presents The Path of the Sacred Passion, a Byzantine Music Concert featuring Stelios Kontakiotis, Spiros Perivolaris, and Georgios Theodoridis on Saturday, 4/20/24, inside St. Katherine's Greek Orthodox Church in Falls Church, VA. General Admission tickets now on sale at DCGreeks.com!
Join Greeks and Philhellenes from over the Midwest and beyond from 5/17/24 - 5/19/24 in Cleveland, OH for three days of parties at the first annual Midwest Greeks event!  Ticket packages are now on sale exclusively at DCGreeks.com! Click here for details!
The Chios Society of the Greater Washington, DC Area invites you to the 67th Annual Convention of the Chios Societies of the Americas & Canada from Friday October 11th to Sunday October 13th, 2024 in Washington, DC! Tickets to all events will be on sale soon at DCGreeks.com! Click here for details!
St. George Greek Orthodox Church of Bethesda, MD invites you to our Greek Festival 2024 on Saturday, May 18 and Sunday, May 19, 2024 at St. George Greek Orthodox Church in Bethesda, MD. Click here for details!
What's New @ DCGreeks.com
03/12Tickets are now on sale for POLIS - The Queen of Cities: A Musical Tribute to the Fall of Constantinople on May 10, 2024 at Saint Sophia Greek Orthodox Cathedral in Washington, DC!
03/11Tickets are now on sale for The Path of the Sacred Passion: A Byzantine Music Concert on April 20, 2024 at St. Katherine's in Falls Church, VA!
03/04Tickets are now on sale for Midwest Greeks 2024 from May 17-19, 2024 in Cleveland, OH!
02/24New Event: Chios Societies of the Americas & Canada 67th Annual Convention from October 11-13, 2024, in Washington, DC!
02/17New Event: St. George's Greek Festival 2024 on 5/18/24 & 5/19/24 in Bethesda, MD
02/07New Event: AHI 50th Anniversary Gala Weekend, April 12-13, 2024, in Washington, DC, featuring Mario Frangoulis in Concert and Hellenic Heritage Achievement and National Public Service Awards Dinner
01/15Tickets are now on sale for DCGreeks.com Greek Heritage Night with the Washington Wizards 2024 on 4/2/24 as they take on Giannis and Thanasis Antetokounmpo and the Bucks!
01/14Tickets are now on sale for Antypas Live in DC with Prodromos & Evgenia on 4/5/24 at Karma DC Live Music Venue in Washington, DC!
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AHEPA Chapter #31 presents POLIS - The Queen of Cities, A Musical Tribute to the Fall of Constantinople on Friday, 5/10/24 at Saint Sophia Greek Orthodox Cathedral in Washington, DC. Reserved pew seating tickets now on sale exclusively at DCGreeks.com!

It's Not Your Father's AHEPA Convention
(Only If You Show Up)

May 21, 2007

Breathing new life into the oldest and largest Greek-American organization in the United States isn’t something anyone can do overnight. For the last year and a half we’ve been teetering on the outside looking in, and on some days, the inside looking out, both on the local and national level with AHEPA. The most significant chance for all of us in the DC area to make at least a small impact in forcing AHEPA to consider the needs of our generation happens this June 14th –17th as the AHEPA Capital District 3 Convention comes to the DC area with the goal of making this "Not Your Father’s AHEPA Convention."

The 76th AHEPA Capital District 3 Convention is seeking basketball teams for its Capital Clash Men’s Basketball Tournament, a 16-team round-robin tournament, taking place at George C. Marshall High School in Falls Church, VA on June 16th-17th. All players must be members of the AHEPA family, Greek Orthodox, or a Philhellene. (A maximum of two non-AHEPA, non-Greek Philhellenes are allowed on a single team.) If interested, please visit the 76th AHEPA District 3 Convention Site, or send an email to [email protected].)

The Convention organizers put us on the committee and tasked us with a rather simple objective – get as many young adults as possible to attend a Convention normally associated with a day and a half of sparsely attended business meetings for the over-60 set, punctuated by a Grand Banquet usually featuring long speeches that even those same sexagenarian and septuagenarians would admit are real snoozers. As the Supreme Convention is normally a good time for AHEPAn and non-AHEPAn alike, there was no reason why a District Convention couldn’t be marketed and promoted in the same way, as a fun three-day weekend for Hellenic and Philhellene young adults who might as a result decide that participation in AHEPA on a more substantive basis outside of the occasional convention might not be so bad.

Seeking a healthy baseline from where to capture the attention as many young adults as possible, the committee began by focusing on athletics. A day before the official start of the Convention, there will be a golf tournament which is already starting to draw interest from the young adults out there who want to out-drive their fathers and grandfathers. But the biggest draw will be the 16-team District 3 Basketball Tournament on the Saturday and Sunday of that weekend. As we’ve seen playing in Greek League these past few years, if something as basic as basketball can bring over 130 Greek guys within 50-feet of an actual church for a dozen or so Sundays during the winter, then there is no reason we can’t get that many guys and their entourages to show up for a weekend where bragging rights from Maryland to North Carolina and beyond will be established.

A HEADS-UP TO ANY SINGLE GREEK GIRL WHO MAY STILL BE READING THIS COLUMN:

For those of you out there who complain about the same old Greek guys you see at Greek events in the DC area, this is going to be the perfect chance to meet someone new without having to book a flight or even miss a day of work. Basketball guys for the most part aren’t the same guys you see at Third Thursday, most Greek Nights, or at a YAL event. Regardless, we know for a fact that we’re getting teams from New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania coming into town for the weekend. We’re starting early enough on Saturday morning that they have to be in town on Friday night, and they will be at the Friday Night Glenti and Young Adult Social, and they’ll stick around for the after-hours Greek Night on Saturday night as the tournament doesn’t end until Sunday.

A HEADS-UP TO ANY SINGLE NON-BASKETBALL PLAYING GREEK GUYS WHO MAY STILL BE READING THIS COLUMN:

Just because the girls who were convinced by the preceding paragraph to come to this weekend think they are coming to meet a guy who will be at best running baseline-to-baseline or at worst "riding pine" for the majority of their Saturday, doesn’t mean that they can’t meet you instead.

Seriously, from a strictly social standpoint, the District 3 Convention will have something to offer to any young adult just looking to relax and have a good time on a Friday and Saturday Night in June. Friday Night’s Glenti and Young Adult Social (note: we added the "Young Adult Social" part) will be a night featuring Zephyros, a band that everyone knows and can have a good time listening and dancing to, no matter what their age. Add a buffet to it, and what more could you ask for? But to specifically cater to the young adults, we’re setting up an outdoor tent (think Fraternity Party meets Greek Festival) and are still working on other aspects to really put an effort into making Friday night fun for those who will be coming from out of town and for the locals who regularly would be doing something downtown that night. (There’s no reason the party can’t continue afterwards either back at the Westin Arlington Gateway, the official hotel for the weekend, or somewhere downtown.) Saturday Night’s Greek Night at Ultrabar will be huge when you think about adding a convention crowd to their typical Greek Night.

Ok, so you’ve made it this far into this advertorial – why was any of this important enough or deserving of more than just a simple banner ad? This District Convention is important because it will send a message. If young adults actually attend in vast numbers it will send a message to the old guard that ours is a demographic that needs to be considered, not just socially, but in more of the efforts that AHEPA sponsors. A group of Greek young adults may be inspired to join their respective AHEPA family organization if they see that AHEPA actually wants them around. It’s a win-win for everyone involved, only if those of you out there make an effort to attend. Check out the official District 3 Convention homepage for more details and for special all-inclusive registration packages for the weekend.


 

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