On February 15, Theresa Kiernan, Lorraine Knepple and Chloe Toole traveled to Los Angeles to represent Trinity Hall at the International Coalition of Girls’ Schools’ Educating Girls Symposium at the Marlborough School. Their presentation, titled “Celebrating the Trailblazers: How We Used Our Origin Story to Energize Our Community” was selected as a breakout session at the one-day conference.
The group presented their work behind the “Trinity Hall: Origins” documentary which was especially powerful with the four Trinity Hall founders in the room. As the interviewees of the documentary and a main focus of the presentation, Mairead and Sean Clifford and Justin and Victoria Gmelich made the trip across the country to witness Theresa, Lorraine and Chloe detail each step of the documentary and premiere process.
Theresa, who currently serves as head of school, started the presentation off by introducing the trailblazers in the room – our four founders. She then told the audience about Trinity Hall’s humble beginnings and how, as a founding faculty member, she came up with the idea of creating a documentary. After saving as much media as possible, discovering the “why” of her story and assembling the right team, she was able to complete the documentary in time for Trinity Hall’s 10th anniversary. Chloe, Trinity Hall communications manager and alumna from the Class of 2017, then continued with the behind-the-scenes process of editing the documentary. Being a self-taught editor, Chloe credited the completion of the documentary to being resourceful and using the internet to her advantage. She showed pictures and clips from the editing timeline and the finished documentary to explain her process. Lorraine, Trinity Hall assistant director of development for alumnae engagement, finished the presentation detailing the planning and execution of the documentary premiere. From start to finish, Lorraine explained how she made the premiere come to life with an orange carpet, a lively venue, a glambot, exciting collateral and swag bags and a rooftop after party.
Theresa, Lorraine and Chloe left the audience with takeaways they can use at their schools to energize their community. After the presentation, Theresa, Lorraine and Chloe, along with the four founders, answered questions from the audience. Other ICGS members asked about the storyline of the documentary, specifics from the premiere, how they incorporated different groups of their community into the film and premiere, and how they can recreate something similar at their own school.
“Presenting at ICGS’ Educating Girls Symposium was an incredible opportunity, not just for us as presenters but also to share the Trinity Hall story with all-girls schools from around the world,” said Chloe Toole. “We were honored to present at an international conference and to connect with fellow creatives who were inspired by our work on the documentary.”
The “Trinity Hall: Origins” Team enjoyed their time in the California sun and being amongst the stars in Hollywood. Interested in seeing the documentary? “Trinity Hall: Origins” is an official selection of the Garden State Film Festival and will be showing on Sunday, March 24 at 12:15 p.m. at the Berkeley Oceanfront Hotel at the Kingsley Ballroom in Asbury Park. Purchase tickets here.