2011 National Leadership Conference

The 2011 National FCCLA Leadership Conference was held in Anaheim, California July 8 - 14. This was my second national conference as either a student or adviser. Malissa Sloan and I took 12 students to the conference and had a magical time! We arrived two days before the opening session to experience the magic of Disneyland and California Adventure. Our plane landed at 10:30 am, we got to the hotel by 11 am and was at Disneyland by noon. Just forewarning, if you go to Disney with Malissa be prepared to walk and see more of the park then you ever thought possible. We stayed at Disney until close on Friday and Saturday and had a great time.

This year I served as the event lead for the Culinary Arts STAR Event. Typically this event is held in a commercial kitchen, but we had to do the event in a hotel ball room without running water or proper refrigeration. Challenging was the theme of the event. The students and judges were a little shaken by this change in situation but managed to complete the event nicely. The only issue that we had were the tasting judges grading extremely tough and teams had to be given extra points to make a different medal ranking that all bronze. I learned that Colorado Food Event is leaps and bounds more organized then the national level.

At the opening and closing sessions, the national officer team built a skit around Saturday Night Live Skit format. The skits were cute and clever in the way it showed how FCCLA has evolved as an organization to meet the needs of the times without losing its focus on the family. The session was a little long for my liking but I enjoyed that SLHS was honored at the Runner Up chapter in the Career Connection National Program.

I attended Track 1 of the Adviser Academy Program, sponsored by the National Consultant Team. I felt that this track was the exact same type of training that the new adviser program was last year because it did the exact same activities and focused on teaching about FCCLA. I have to complete all five tracks to graduate from this program and am optimistic about learning more about being an effective adviser from the other tracks.  I would recommend this academy for new advisers that are looking to expand their adviser skills and knowledge of FCCLA.

Overall, we had a great time at the National Leadership Conference. Please watch this video to see the amazing time we had I learned a lot about being and adviser and came home with many teaching resources. This conference is a great way to strengthen your skills as an adviser and a great way for students to develop as leaders. I hope to go again next year!