My favorite part about the conference was I really liked the first guest speaker’s talk because of the emotion he put in it. It was a very special connection he had with his audience. And his quote, “Do what you have to do to get there” which was very impactful”
— Melissa Ramirez Lopez
I really loved it! It was very like, enjoyable and very social. And it taught you like the different types of ways that we could socialize and help each other, people who are introverted and who don’t really like being around a lot of people. That really helps like teachers, those who aren’t very social and also ways to include other people as well”
— Leslie Valdivia
So this leadership conference was a great opportunity for students outside of ASB to experience what ASB students go through on a daily basis which is bringing school activities onto campus, being exposed to leadership activities and opportunities for them and their peers. So it is awesome that other students involved in clubs got to experience that same opportunity”
— Adrian Salazar
All the students were set to meet outside of Mr. Salazar’s classroom before first period started. Once all the students arrived, we walked to the Santa Maria Fair Park. We really could’ve used a ride there, that walk was way too long, ha-ha. But all jokes, aside, we were able to get there safely. We got there around 8:45 a.m. or somewhere around 9:00 a.m. The conference didn’t start until 9:30 a.m. so meanwhile we had Groove Factor Entertainment, the DJ group, playing some songs to keep us entertained. As we entered the Convention Center and sat down, school after school starts coming inside. We start seeing students from Pioneer Valley, Righetti and much more. The conference starts by having a motivational guest speaker by the name of Dee Hankins. He came to talk about his life growing up and how life will throw curveballs at you but eventually we have to get up and not let those curveballs be a disturbance to us.
After that motivational speech we decided to play a few games considering we’ve been sitting for a while. Thank goodness for that because my legs would’ve been glued to my seat. We played Egg-Chicken-Dinosaur, Jeopardy and much more. After that, we broke up into our intended groups. After we entered the Santa Maria Fair Park campus we were given either a red or blue ticket. That would indicate which group you would belong to first. I got a blue ticket which meant I would have to stay inside the Convention Center and hang out with Groove Factor Entertainment. The main DJ would give us a talk on communication skills as a leader and how we should reach out to people. We would then rotate and head onto the workshops that they had at the Park Plaza. We were then offered a snack as we headed out of the Convention Center. They had a total of six workshops. This is what they had, Purposefully Present, Exciting Student Sections, Video Culture, Mental Health, Poppin’ Publicity and Sticks: Strength in Numbers. Unfortunately, we couldn’t go to all of them as we only had time to visit two of those workshops. The first workshop that I went to was Poppin’ Publicity. Over there, we got to make posters and how to attract people to your club/school events. Colors and words are key to making a good poster. For my last workshop I went to was Purposefully Present. In that workshop, we had to partner up and talk with each other about our observations and the different ways we can prepare ourselves when talking up front or presenting something.
After that workshop rotation we were called to into the Park Plaza and head go with our advisor for our lunch break. There was Mr. Salazar waiting for us with a few boxes of pizza from Straw Hat Pizza and a box of water bottles. I could never pass up a slice of pizza. After our little lunch break, we went back inside the Convention Center. We were then distributed into twelve groups. All the class and club presidents had to go to group one. I went to group ten. In our groups we discussed about the stuff we can do to better help our school and clubs and pretty much talk about anything until the conference ended. After that we all got back into our regular school groups and headed out of the Fair Park. After that long conference we decided to head on over to Starbucks for a drink. I’m not too big on coffee so I just chose whatever there was and went with the Vanilla Bean Frappuccino. It was alright. After that we went on our merry way back to school and waited for school to end as we only had minutes to spare before the bell rang. What a good day that was!
