I was constantly on the verge of a mental breakdown. It was October — midway through first semester — and I was finally starting to realize that having a full course load, working two jobs, being the president of two blogs and captaining two varsity sports teams was too much for someone who only has two hands. There was only one thing left those hands were strong enough for and that was folding them together and praying that God would help me get through the year.
One of my many commitments was being the president of Her Campus Laurier Brantford. It terrified me. I spent all of August going through the gruelling application process to get the chapter started, and suddenly I found my rookie self the leader of 20 wonderful, ambitious women. Once we launched and I realized, “Holy crap, this is actually happening,” it hit me that I didn’t have a clue what I was doing and I had no time to get everything done. There were certain rules to follow, levels to be achieved, weekly recaps to be filled out, an entire team to train… This was not my kingdom to rule.
One night during that October, I opened my laptop one last time to catch up on emails before escaping the world and going to bed. At this point I dreaded checking my inbox because there was always a fat bundle of new messages about meetings, problems that needed solving and random responsibilities that my plate didn’t have room for.
But after I refreshed my email, there was only one new message. It was from a girl named Bryanna Millben asking to join our Her Campus chapter. I clicked the email and read the message.
Hi Jessa!
My name is Bryanna, I’m a 3rd year English student at Laurier Brantford, and I just transferred this year from the University of Windsor. I’m so happy to hear that Laurier Brantford finally has a Her Campus chapter!
I was the co-CC for Her Campus at Windsor for 2 years, and prior to being promoted to president I was a member of the writing and social media teams for a semester. With my chapter, I oversaw the writing, editing, posting, and publicity aspects of the team, while my co-CC and I brought the chapter from no-level to platinum level in just a year. If you’d like to take a look at any of my articles, you can do so here.
If you’re accepting new people I’d really love to join your team, and I look forward to hearing from you with any next steps!
HCXO,
Bryanna
Let me make this loud and clear: reading that email was a PIVOTAL. MOMENT.
She was an angel sent from God. She had to be. I was convinced. She had previous experience being a Her Campus president, she was an expert at ascending the chapter level ladder, she even included the Her Campus sign off (HCXO). This woman knew what she was doing.
I arranged to meet with her that week to see what she was like and to feel out if we might work well together as co-presidents. As I had hoped, she turned out to be a kind, humble and helpful person. She showed me all these resources from the Her Campus headquarters that I could use to manage the team and shared more about the work she had done with Her Campus at Windsor. I had only just met this girl, and usually I was cautious with acquaintances, but something told me that Bryanna was exactly what our team needed. I asked her right then and there to co-lead Her Campus Laurier Brantford with me.
I took her to our team meetings that night and knew right away that asking for her leadership was the best decision I ever made. She told our team about her experiences at Windsor: the events they did, the times their articles and social media posts went viral, how they rapidly became a platinum-level chapter. Suddenly everything seemed so possible.
Bryanna is a workaholic and knows anything and everything about Her Campus. When I was too busy to help the team reach their full potential, she was there. When the team had questions, she knew the answers. Even when she had her own stresses in work, life and school, Bryanna never stopped being unstoppable. Our chapter took off with flying colours, thanks to her leadership, hard work and dedication. I would not have been able to do it without her.
Bryanna, you are the real-life version of Superwoman. Thanks be to God for sending you here.