Don’t be average, be legendary!

Kevin McBain
of The Clarion

Elizabeth Middle School was the site for the 11th annual 2018 Sun West School Division Student Leadership Conference on April 19 and 20.

A record number of Grades 7 to 12 students, 180, attended the two-day event from about 16 schools in the school division.

The event is completely organized and led by students within the school division. A group of 19 students from across the division, with the help of advisors.

Vanessa Lewis, a career development consultant with the school division, was one of those consultants. She said that the event went very well.

“From a big picture perspective, seeing the students go through their journey from choosing a theme, speakers and going through everything, they did a phenomenal job,” she said. “It is such a great chance for students to come together to have that experience in organizing such an event for their peers. It is great for those that came to learn about different aspects of leadership and how they can take those back to become better leaders in their school.

“A big thanks has to go to Elizabeth School Principal Tammy Diemert and the entire school for welcoming us and allowing us to use their facilities,” she added.

[emember_protected for=”2″ custom_msg=’For more on this story, please see the Apr. 25 print edition of The Clarion.’]

The event, kicked off Thursday afternoon with registration, icebreakers, supper and the opening ceremonies with comments from school principal Tammy Diemert and Director of Education Guy Tetrault.

Keynote speaker Tyler Hayden then presented his view on what it takes to be a leader, drawing from his life experiences.

Hayden is a full-time internationally respected team builder, author and conference and business motivational speaker that delivers a powerful punch inspiring teams, innovates management and invigorates team culture.

He is also an author of more than 20 books and has travelled the world for more than two decades. Prior to the event, he shared some of his thoughts on being a part of the conference.

“I was a student leader as well and it’s great to give back,” said Hayden. “I do a lot of corporate work, but any chance that I can work with youth, I will be first in line.”

He added that it is about living life to the fullest.

“It’s about living life large. Getting the most out of life and grasping every single moment of every single day,” he said. “The best is when people connect with me on Facebook and tell me that something I said made a change in their life. I may not know what I said, but if I can maybe light a spark, you never know what might come out of it.”

In his first keynote address, he presented Living Life Large.

“Being a legendary leader is about doing the little things in life,” he said. “Start with the little things and from there you can do anything you want to do.

“How much energy you put into something is what you will get out of it,” aded Hayden.

He shared some of his adventures, such as going in a cage and getting up close and personal with some great white sharks; skydiving going on a bus trip with seniors to watch some polar bears; actually getting to fly a barrel roll and a loop-de-loop in a trick plane; and doing a little canyoning in Switzerland.

“Take that risk, push beyond what you think you can do,” he said. “If you don’t challenge yourself you will get the same results. Push back comfortable. Keep consistently pushing yourself to truly understand yourself and your strengths.”

Other thoughts he shared included: Enthusiasm is caught not taught. Along with that he shared a story about going skydiving for the first time and getting the instructor to jump even though he wasn’t planning on doing it.

“The instructor just said, you got me jacked and I just wanted to jump.”

“Be infectious to yourself, teachers and everyone,” he said. “Believe in your school and pull people in.”

Thursday’s activities concluded with a dance.

Friday, everyone was up early and after breakfast, Tyler shared his ‘Light it Up,” activities that parodied several old games shows such as ‘Are you smarter than an RVer’.

Following his keynote address, students broke into breakout sessions led by Hayden and instructors Janelle Layton, Roxan Foursha, a Skype presentation from leadership students in the U.S. and a pound class by Sherry Bacon.

They covered topics such entrepreneurship, leadership, and building a quality event.

Following lunch, students again broke into groups talking about what it takes to be a leader including perseverance, organization, positivity and hard work, team work, integrity, and patience and determination.

The event closed off with a gym blast and closing thank you to the speakers, sponsors and to everyone that helped out in any way.

Shayla Olafson, a Grade 12 student leader at Kindersley Composite School and member of Team Sun West, thought that the event went well.

“I thought it went really well,” she said. “Normally, there would have been five or six meetings with the team to help get things organized, but this year we only had three meetings with the group and advisors, so it was a little harder to get things organized.”

She has been a part of school leadership in some capacity, since elementary school and says that she really enjoyed being a part of the organizing team this year and will miss be ing a part of events such as this.

Cory Doll, a Grade 11 student from Plenty said that he enjoyed the event.

“The speaker talked about perseverance and doing the things you want to do when you’re young. The main message was to never give up,” he said. “I enjoyed the conference very much and glad that I was able to go.”

Classmate Reis Williams also said that it was enjoyable.

“The days were filled with things to do,” said Williams. “I really enjoyed the breakout session that was talking about the 80/10/10 theory where 10 per cent of students do nothing exciting in their school life, 10 per cent try to do everything and 80 per cent are like a ball, where they have to be pushed to do things in school, but once they are pushed they are in motion to be active in their school. It was also said that the 10 per cent of the people who try to do everything, the leaders should make events that would include everyone, not just themselves.

“It was an amazing learning experience that was fun and interesting. I made a lot of new friends and was extremely happy that I went and would love to do it again,” Williams added.

Adrianna Graham, also a part of Team Sun West, from Eatonia said that it was a great experience.

“Overall, it went well. There was definitely a lot of planning that went into it,” she said. “The first presentation of Tyler was about living life large and taking risks, or else you won’t experience anything amazing. There are so many things you can do and you should do something and not be scared to do it.

“I enjoyed the planning and it was the most, as it as a large part of what the event was. I made many new friends and wanted to encourage others to be a leader,” she added. “I learned that even though you may be scared to take a risk, you should take it, because it only means you have to be brave for 30 seconds and then you get to experience something new to you.”

There was also another leadership team that was part of the planning process – a Sun West youth consultation committee of 15 students from around the division.

They split into three groups and gave separate sessions dealing with different topics during a breakout session. They then asked for feedback from the attendees, which they will present to the Sun West School Board.

KCS Grade 9 student Chelsea Martin, said that she was part of the team that talked about Personal Electronic Blended Learning (PeBL).

“We talked about PeBL then received feedback from the students and the reaction was mixed,” she said, adding that the conference overall went really well. “The best part of the conference I think was our keynote speaker Tyler Hayden.”

She said that the conference really helped her with her public speaking.

Elizabeth School Principal Tammy Diemert thought that the event well.

“I think it went really well. I think everyone enjoyed the opportunity to mix with other students and learn more about leadership,” she said. “This is all planned by student leaders with four from KCS and four from Elizabeth school which is really good.

“It is definitely an opportunity for student to plan something like this and to learn leadership skills from the advisors,” added Diemert. “I think it is a great experience for all of them.”

[/emember_protected]