Your regional Vice Presidents, Cathy Ding, Southern Region Vice President, and Abhisek Sahoo, Northern Region Vice President tell us about their leadership development conferences.
Southern California Leadership Development Conference
This year marks the first year that California DECA has held the Southern California Leadership Development conference in the beautiful and sunny city of Irvine, California! The conference was filled with informative workshops, exciting adventures, and a journey to discovering our strengths and weaknesses as leaders in the business world.
Kicking off our opening session, we discussed many important topics essential to the success of our California DECA chapters such as chapter campaigns, officer visits, and other important DECA events throughout the year. We had our leadership training specialist, Danielle Tuason lead a segment of ELEVATE, which is a national DECA certified leadership development program. Student leaders across Southern California were able to successfully determine what type of leader they were and how they are able to contribute overall to a team’s dynamic.
Of course our leadership development conferences will not be complete without a session to help our members achieve the utmost success in their DECA competitive careers. With two levels of workshops, introductory and advanced, California DECA was able to help both groups of competitors gear up on competition knowledge and propel them on their journey to success for the upcoming career development conferences.
The afternoon marks one of California DECA’s most exciting leadership and teamwork development ventures at the University of Irvine’s high ropes course. Teams across several different schools in Southern California all found a new strength within them as they discover through the ropes course how to work in teams and overcome obstacles and challenges along the way.
With an excellent mixture of informative and adventurous, this year’s Southern California Leadership Development Conference was an absolute success and it is in our best hopes that this experience will be one that will remain close to all the members in the future: an experience creates lasting memories.
Northern Region Leadership Development Conference
The Northern California Leadership Development Conference recently took place from October 9th-10th in the beautiful San Ramon, California. Over 140 members from all across the region attended, and many went home bursting with knowledge to bring back to their home chapters.
Friday began with an opening session led by Patrick T. Grady, a former middle school and high school educator who now travels full-time throughout our nation inspiring and encouraging individuals to do their best in all that they attempt. Patrick discussed his stories about flexibility and leadership, with the overall moral of never doubting yourself no matter what. Excited by his energy and vigor, students moved on to the first round of workshops led by the Northern California State Officers, Abhisek Sahoo and Moksh Jawa, as well as members of TRI Leadership. To end Friday on a high note, a DECA social took place filled with board games, dancing, and music!
Curtis Haley, Senior Program Manager at TRI Leadership, began Saturday off with a lesson on professional dining etiquette. Spoon away, and bring the soup to your mouth, people! Capitalizing on every learning experience Saturday morning, competitive workshops followed the breakfast session for both new and experienced members.
When asked about his overall experience at NorCal LDC, President of Fremont Christian DECA, Eric Dang, said, “NorCal LDC was inspiring to every member of my new chapter. The event made us extremely excited for all the DECA conferences to follow as well as the various learning opportunities that can come through DECA’s four clusters of business. We are ready to take on the year!”
All in all, the Northern California Leadership Development Conference was a success. See you at the district conference in January everyone!
