Leadership Conference

The Leadership Conference is a three day conference where officer members of best buddies go to learn about how to be a president of the club and learn how to be a good leader in the club. There is also an option for students with disabilities to go to Leadership Conference.

 

There are classroom learning sessions. The participants got to pick what classes they were in before the classes. The participants will go to the selected classes on the first day and learn about leading the club, recruiting people, and fundraising. The second day the classes are broken up into states and taught selected materials for a portion of the day. The participants are taught about leading and how to set up their club’s events. The participants with disabilities go to special classes and are taught how to write speeches the first day. The second day is about how to deliver the speech they wrote and how to talk in front of people.

There is time to talk with people from all over the world about how they run their club and what works and what doesn’t work. They held what is called the World Café where people from all around the world got to talk to each other about their clubs and what they do.

The conference also has some extremely large parties every day including everyone. There is opening ceremonies where everyone gets to dance and the participants are introduced to the leaders when they first arrive. There is closing ceremonies at the end of it where all of the participants with disabilities got to give the speeches they worked on and again everyone danced. This is used to get everyone excited about the upcoming Best Buddies year and pumped up for the conference.
 
Both of the two nights there aren’t closing or opening ceremonies there are other options for bonding with the group members. The first night there is usually a pool party or karaoke party option. The second night there is an option for either a dance party or a movie.
 
There are also speakers that come in and talk to everybody at the conference. They come and talk to everyone to inspire them to be a great leader and get them excited about the conference. Some of the speakers came to show what people with disabilities can accomplish. Dr. Karen Gaffney and Lauren Potter were two of the speakers that showed they were able to accomplish a lot even with disabilities.