The following is a guest blog entry from Dana Perrino, CMP, one of MPI’s chapter business managers. It’s about an MPI member who has inspired her and continues to inspire her family, friends and fellow chapter members.

Inspiration is defined by Jennifer Leech, current vice president of finance and previous vice president of education for the MPI Pittsburgh Chapter. Jen was diagnosed with stage 2 cancer in March 2011. While balancing her full-time career—as well as being a wife and mother of three beautiful girls—she has never missed a board meeting or retreat while she continues on a road to beat cancer. Her commitment to contribute to the meetings and events community in Pittsburgh is truly astonishing. This level of commitment was displayed the times her husband was required to drive her to the MPI meetings because she was too weak from her chemotherapy sessions.

Though the Pittsburgh board has endured certain challenges, she has made an impact serving in the position of vice president of education. Her goal is to one day serve as this chapter’s president, but her current focus remains on elevating the chapter regardless of her role.

While attending the Pittsburgh Mid-Year Retreat in January, Jen told me her cancer had returned. It is because of Jen’s impressive personal fortitude that I wish to share her level of determination to continue being involved, engaged and invested in our business and in attendance at chapter events and meetings. Jen surrounds herself with the components of life important to keep her moving forward and leave the challenges she faces behind as best she can with a positive attitude and spirit.

I have always been in awe of Jen, but at January’s retreat she once again inspired me with her message to Pittsburgh’s board of directors. She told us the road ahead would be rough, and she may not be able to continue in her current capacity. The idea of this broke her heart. She communicated her passion for MPI, which was absolutely contagious. She also expressed that there would be no more excuses. If she could step up based on her personal situation, then they could also remain focused to strengthen the chapter. Since the retreat, she continues to engage the chapter at the same level. She admits to being stubborn and fiercely determined in everything she does and refuses to allow cancer to be her legacy. Instead, it is her desire that her family, her love for education and MPI will be her legacy. 

Jen has not allowed her battle with cancer to slow her down, and she continues to perform her MPI and director of catering role with the Sheraton Station Square Hotel well. In 2011, she was honored as the Greater Pittsburgh Hotel Association Manager of the Year. She was recently promoted to director of catering, a position she has worked hard the past 10 years to achieve. 

“I know that you already know how absolutely amazing and inspiring she is,” said Danielle Himes, president-elect for the Pittsburgh Chapter. “I first met Jen at our May 2010 Gala. She attended the Gala after receiving a chemo treatment that day, sporting a beautiful wig that she fussed over half the night. Needless to say, she still looked gorgeous, and I wouldn’t have known that she was even sick if she hadn’t asked me to check her wig for her. I was instantly amazed at her stamina and focus on succeeding in her oncoming role as vice president of education. Jen joined the board in July 2010. She inherited an incomplete calendar with no programs booked. Within her first year on the board, she was able to complete a successful education calendar that brought the focus of monthly programming back to event and planning topics.”

“I first met Jen at our annual retreat in June 2010,” said Becky McMillen, chapter president. “She came to the overnight retreat in her words ‘bald as a cue ball.’ She had just finished a chemo treatment. She was unable to drive, so her husband drove her and stayed overnight. Any other person would excuse themselves from the retreat, but Jen came and was focused the entire time. She did inherit a position that lacked direction and structure but despite the position she was given, she has held a passion for MPI Pittsburgh that was and continues to be inspiring. 

“Since the retreat, Jen and I have worked alongside to ‘discover’ MPI,” McMillen continued. “Not only does Jen get the job done, she does it with such a passion and drive for the industry. We have shared in personal moments after surgeries and doctors’ appointments and even celebrated the news of her being cancer free. Now, we sit with the news of the unknown and more questions. Except Jen seems to be the only person not sitting! She is up and working, sending RFPs to secure venues for our fall 2013 calendar, emailing, holding committee meetings and mentoring her director of monthly programs. She is truly an inspiration and a selfless volunteer for MPI Pittsburgh.” 

Jen Leech continues to be an inspiration to me. She is the model for my other chapter leaders who also have the courage to leap forward and lead, versus those that take more of a back seat. Whatever challenges you may encounter, I know my strongest board leaders have the same personal fire and professional savvy to push forward. 

Did I mention that inspiration is defined by Jennifer Leech?

The following was written by Lindsey Press, event specialist for National Events Deloitte, and Angie Draskovic, founder and CEO of ZOË Alliance Inc.

We are MPI members for many reasons. Personal and professional development, career enhancement, networking and business development, to name a few.

As an industry that is in the business of bringing people together, we are acutely aware of how we are interconnected and the fundamental importance of community.

Our latest ECOS Committee event, “MPI Build a Bike Day,” took us to the Toronto Kiwanis Boys & Girls Club (101 Spruce Street), where we helped provide five boys and five girls from Regent Park with very empowering gifts of dignity, autonomy and the opportunity to build confidence.

Sixty-nine percent of the families that use the Spruce Street location have average incomes of less than $20,000 and some even earn less than $8,000. This is staggering to consider and painful to think about how neighbors in our community are expected to excel with so much less.

On June 20, a group of 27 MPI Toronto members and their families came together and built bikes for 10 very deserving children. The morning was full of the usual up-beat atmosphere that surrounds an MPI event. We enjoyed seeing another side of our colleagues and quickly realized who in the group knew how to use a wrench!

A bike is typically regarded as a childhood staple, but to these children it is so much more.

As volunteers, many of us did not anticipate what we would learn once meeting the children who received the bikes. Many of them had never ridden a bike before and would be learning for the first time at the ages of 10 or 11. For some, this bike would become transportation to get to a part-time job and earn much needed supplementary income for their families. Of course the children’s faces were beaming when they were presented with their bike. However, we could not have anticipated the looks of heartfelt gratitude that appeared on their parent’s faces!

What was accomplished would not have been possible without the private donations of corporate sponsors and generosity of the following; Toronto Kiwanis Boys & Girls Club, AVW Telav Audio Visual Solutions, Elephant Entertainment and D.E.Solutions.

On that Saturday morning, our MPI Toronto family grew a little and 10 bikes became much more than a toy.

Every time I come across a story about time, the song "Time Is On My Side" pops into my head. The sense of having control of your own time and not letting someone else dictate it is one of the reasons I like that song. Nevertheless, many people think they don't control time. If you're one of those people who suffer from time famine, there's something positive you can do to combat the negative sense of time. According to a new study, volunteering your limited time—giving it away— may actually increase your sense of unhurried leisure.

Across four different experiments, researchers found that people’s subjective sense of having time, called "time affluence," can be increased. Compared with wasting time, spending time on oneself and even gaining a windfall of free time, spending time on others increased participants’ feelings of time affluence.

Lead researcher and psychological scientist Cassie Mogilner of The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania believes this is because giving away time boosts one’s sense of personal competence and efficiency, and this in turn stretches out time in our minds. Ultimately, giving time makes people more willing to commit to future engagements despite their busy schedules.

Furthermore, psychological scientists Melanie Rudd and Jennifer Aaker of Stanford University Graduate School of Business and Kathleen Vohs of the University of Minnesota Carlson School of Management devised a way to study the feeling of awe in the laboratory. Across three different experiments, they found that jaw-dropping moments made participants feel like they had more time available and made them more patient, less materialistic and more willing to volunteer time to help others.

The researchers found that the effects that awe has on decision-making and well-being can be explained by awe's ability to actually change our subjective experience of time by slowing it down. Experiences of awe help to brings us into the present moment which, in turn, adjusts our perception of time, influences our decisions and makes life feel more satisfying than it would otherwise.

This research conducted by Mogilner—and co-authors Zoe Chance of the Yale School of Management and Michael Norton of Harvard Business School—is forthcoming in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

BONUS: "Time Is On My Side" by The Rolling Stones

(Story materials by the Association for Psychological Science.)