2018 - 2019 FFA Leadership Retreat

The Buena Park FFA Leadership Team recently went to Oceanside, San Diego from June 8 - 10 for their Officer Retreat.   At this retreat, the FFA Leadership Team is asked to plan out the FFA event that the chapter holds during the school year.  This allows leadership to prepare for the Buena Park FFA members and to encourage them to get involved within the program through chapter activities.
During the Leadership Retreat, committee chairmen and vice chairmen plan out every activity, event, and community reach activity that the chapter will host during the school year.  These events can include anything from monthly meetings, where students build up leadership skills, to annual banquets which award members for all their hard work and dedication they did within the program and their projects.  The purpose of the three day retreat is to train the chairmen and vice chairmen on how to be efficient and effective leaders. This retreat allowed the members to gain leadership qualities, skills and also allowed them to bond together so they can lead a successful school year.   
Within the Leadership Team, there are three committees: Meetings & Service, Publicity, and SAE & CDE.  Each committee has three members: one committee chairman and two vice chairmen. Each committee does something unique that helps shape our chapter and encourages members to get involved within their chapter as well as their community.  The Publicity Committee is in charge of all media and marketing of the Buena Park FFA chapter. They do everything from writing articles to local newspapers, creating newsletters, taking picture, updating the website and update social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and SnapChat.  The chair of this committee is Yesenia Tellez and the two vice chairmen are Alex Aguilar and Luis Torres. The Meetings and Service Committee are in charge of monthly meetings, leadership events, community service events and banquets. This committee does everything from planning, hosting and prepparing for all meetings, banquets and community service activities. Some examples would be our annual Greenhand and Chapter Degree Banquet as well as our Month of Giving which has students donating clothes, toys and food to the local community.  The chairman for this committee is Kelly Cotelegde and the two vice chairmen are Cindy Blanco and Erika Lorenzo. The SAE and CDE Committee are in charge of informing the chapter and community about Supervised Agricultural Experiences (SAE), Career Development Events (CDE) and the importance of agriculture. This committee hosts events such as our Buena Park Livestock Show, meetings for students to work on their recordkeeping and numerous events to get students involved with CDE events and SAE projects. The chairman for this committee is Brenda Hernandez and her vice chairmen are Aritza Palomares and Sarita David.  
At this retreat, members did many workshops and team building activities to strengthen their committee.  Leadership members worked together on creating goals for their events and created a step by step plan on how they would get the job done.  Members also looked at the National Program Award and made sure that their events they were creating connected with that award application.  Team building activities focused on communicating and listening skills within their committee. They worked on how to delegate ideas and tasks as well as learned about how to interact with different personalities.  At the end of the retreat, members of the leadership team knew how to be great leaders for their chapter and organization. “what i gained from going to my first retreat was learning more about my fellow officers that'll be serving with this year and what i enjoyed most was going to the beach.”
The Buena Park Leadership Team looks forward in serving the Buena Park FFA program for the 2018-2019 school year. If you are interested in the program, want to get more information on how to get involved or want to keep up with our events that we host for the community, please visit our website at www.BuenaParkFFA.com.  Have social media and want to be updated regularly? Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or SnapChat at BuenaParkFFA.