Written by Chapter President, Siena Boscaro
On January 28th and 29th, 15 SLO FFA students attended the Advanced Leadership Academy in Monterey Bay. This conference, along with the Made for Excellence conference, is put on by the current state officers, along with FFA alumni.
The Advanced Leadership Academy (ALA) is designed for juniors and seniors to grow their leadership skills and bring applicable knowledge back to their chapters. The curriculum is centered around the four stages of team development: forming, storming, norming, and performing. Students participated in different activities to learn more about each step, and how to identify where they are in the process.
While getting to meet and connect with students from all around the state, SLO FFA students also spent time working with each other to design a chapter activity. Split into three groups, they each designed a new welcome-back BBQ for incoming freshmen and their parents. They each made a poster containing the details and a full SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats). Then, each group presented their posters and received constructive criticism on how they could improve their event.
After the exciting sessions on Sunday, everyone got together in the conference hall for the dance! It was so fun spending time with the new friends we made, as well as the state officers. “My favorite part of this conference was getting to connect with the state officers, specifically Austin Bell. He encouraged student participation and showed compassion to everyone there, it was very motivational,” says junior and chapter officer Linda Rojas. Junior Holly Speake says her favorite part of the conference was “meeting new people. It’s not often we get to make friends with other FFA members not from our area, it’s always fun to make new friends”.
Everyone who attended had the exciting opportunity to grow their leadership skills and spend time with other FFA members. Our students are excited to bring this knowledge back to the chapter and hopefully implement the event they planned! Thank you to the California FFA State Officers for putting on this special weekend, we can’t wait to come back next year!