The Leadership Games~COLT 2012

So, I must apologize... it's been waaaay too long since my last blogging activity! :/

Over the past 4 months, the Nebraska FFA State Officers have been busy with Chapter Officer Leadership Training (COLT), the National Leadership Conference for State Officers (NLCSO), NPower, State President's Conference (SPC) and Business and Industry visits (B&I's)...yes, you will soon come to find out that we here at Nebraska FFA love our acronyms!  Keep reading to discover what COLT is all about and look for my future blogs devoted to the other previously mentioned summer activities. 

The main stage for COLT 2012~The Leadership Games

Our four COLT sessions were held May 17-30 in Aurora, NE.  COLT is for FFA chapter officers to learn how to effectively serve their chapters.  Focus is on individual leadership skills, as well as how to work as a chapter officer team.  Officers experience hands-on leadership activities, share and learn great ideas, and create an action plan for their year of service. 

While I had been to COLT two times before as a secretary and then vice-president for the West Boyd FFA chapter, never had I gone as a chapter president.  Not only would facilitating COLT be a new experience for me, the president's position was new to me too...needless to say I was a little worried about how COLT 2012 would go.  I had nothing to worry about though~my presidents were all AMAZING groups!  I am so blessed to have gotten to know each member at COLT and what makes them tick as officers of the largest youth organization-FFA.

<-- The walls of the gym -->

During each of our last sessions together, we decided to take a few minutes to capture our thoughts as to what we all took away from COLT.  Here's a few of the thoughts we came up with:

• Bake a big enough pie for everyone! :)
• COMMUNICATION is key in every situation.
• Welcome change to better our chapters and our lives.
• Make our own story, go against the grain, experience our own life~be ourselves!
• It is our duty to tell our own stories about agriculture.
• To be a great leader we can't have all the power to ourselves...we have to share it.
• The things we learned here at COLT will help us, not only in our year as FFA chapter officers, but in our daily lives. 

So, for all COLT presidents and other officers~I absolutely loved getting to know everyone!  The growth that I saw over the 3 short days of each session was amazing...I can't wait to see what we all accomplish over this next year!  

 These would be the four amazing sessions of COLT presidents. :)