YOGOWYPI
You Only Get Out What You Put In!
by Bailey Morris
October 04, 2009
On Tuesday, September 29th, Mrs. Epley was able to get the team of excited FBLA officers out of school for a day as they headed west towards Kearney for a Fall Leadership Conference full of great speakers and educational workshops! The van was full of all seven officers and their sponsor: President - Ronny Sorensen, Vice President - Kayla Timm, Secretary - Jennifer Mahoney, Treasurer - Nate Kosse, Historian - Cami Bruckman, Reporter - Bailey Morris, and Parliamentarian - Kevin Hall. They departed the high school at 7:30 AM and arrived at the Holiday Inn around 8:30 AM for registration, and began preparing for the first session that started at 9:00 AM.
The first session began with the introduction of our FBLA State Officers:
President – Ashley Wood
Vice President – Lance Johnson
Secretary – Tyler Wellman
Treasurer – Noah Carpenter
Reporter – Isaac Thompson
Parliamentarian – Jenna Woitaszewski
They explained to us the 2009-2010 FBLA goals, as described in an acronym using the letters of the word “best” - which just so happens to be the FBLA theme this year - “Simply the Best".
First, the letter B-broadcast! A few of our goals this year are to increase Business Achievement Award recipients to 150 by promoting chapter involvement and announcing release dates through electronic communication. We would also like to raise, as a state, $10,000 for the Nebraska FBLA foundation and provide Gold Seal and Sweepstakes Award information to keep everyone up to date on what our chapter is doing!
E-everyone. We need everyone we can get so it is very important that we encourage and improve our communication skills. One way we can support our chapter networking is by joining the Nebraska FBLA Facebook group. Also, we need to challenge ourselves to connect with at least one local business and gain their support so they can help us achieve these chapter goals.
The next letter, S, stands for service! We hope to fundraise more and combine with the other chapters in Nebraska to raise $17,000 for the March of Dimes! We also are trying to come up with a “Go Green” project to help conserve our earth and teach other people about the importance of taking care of our community. Tallying up at least seven community service hours per member is another great in which we can provide support and service to our community and the surrounding areas.
Last but not least, T stands for target! If we, as a state, can strengthen our membership by at least two members per chapter, we will increase our FBLA enrollment by 280! We also want to help other chapters get reactivated or to charter new chapters by informing them about FBLA and educating them on parliamentary procedure.
The group had a fantastic and very hilarious speaker, Bill Cordes. Mr. Cordes spoke to us about how we can use the FBLA Adventure as an opportunity to jump start our careers and have success in all of our life adventures. The FBLA Adventure that Cordes spoke of can be summed up in an eight-letter acronym-YOGOWYPI, which stands for “You Only Get Out What You Put In!” He used the example of participating in school activities to show us that if you are going to make yourself, your team, and your school better, you must push yourself everyday - instead of being complacent and happy with just sustaining.
After the motivational speech, the officers attended workshops specific to their office positions. Then, after filling our stomachs with a good meal, we had the chance to attend two of the five other workshops available: Simply the Best, Networking: You Never get a Second Chance to Make a First Impression, Who Wants to be a Millionaire, March Madness, and Tools for Success were the five different types of workshops that were offered.
After heading home, the officers are preparing for their upcoming events in the next couple of weeks: the Junior High Volleyball Tournament on October 3rd in Bladen, the Red Cross Blood Mobile that’s coming to the High School on October 7th, and asking students, staff and community for help with their "Go Green" Project. More information will be coming in the future!
