Another Year, A New Experience

This being my fourth National FFA Convention, I was certainly familiar with the process. However, each year, I have played a different role and have had different duties. This year was no different.

I first started by assisting with the time keeping of the Novice Parliamentary Procedure event. I was able to watch a bunch of teams compete. I learned so much about what the judges look for in the contest and how to set up the contest room. I also picked up on some common themes such as average time limit (for their 13 minute debate, most finished around 9-11 minutes), norms and common colloquial, and what things the teams struggled with the most. 

I ended up taking a bunch of notes which can all be viewed in my last blog: A Slice of Parli. 

The rest of the time at convention, I helped National FFA at the Educational Resources booth in the expo hall. I told advisors about the latest book in the Habitudes series written by Dr. Tim Elmore and also about My Journey which is offered through ffa.org.

 It was a great experience and I got to meet some really great ag advisors. I even learned that an alumnus of the Puerto Rico FFA Association is working toward ways to translate the Robert's Rules of Order to Spanish, and is looking forward to implementing formal lessons on how to use Parliamentary Procedure in Puerto Rico. 

When I had some free time and wasn't waiting in long lines at the food stands, I was able to walk around the shopping area and expo hall. I would say that while I walked around for personal leisure, I also had my teacher radar up. I began looking at different booths as resources for my future in agricultural education. We discussed some of those booths in class, but I took some pictures of the resources for Parli Pro that I found which I would hope to purchase one day as an ag teacher.

          

In addition, I came across the CASE curriculum booth where they had Penn State University's Teach Ag! flag hanging up!

While I was working at the booth, I also had the unique opportunity to interview sponsors, advisors, and members. It was really great hearing what was happening in their programs. I was especially interested to hear the advisor's interviews because I enjoyed hearing their perspective. One of the questions that was asked was "what advice would you give to your fellow teachers?" I really enjoyed listening to their responses and hope to keep in mind some of their tips and ideas. 

As if convention isn't exciting enough, I thought I'd share one fun tidbit. Despite working long hours at the booth, it made my day seeing this little guy roaming around the expo hall!

Yes, that is a flamingo.