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Even
parents must be good leaders or their families can become dysfunctional.
It is hardly an exaggeration to say that our very success as a nation
depends upon good leadership.
But
my research shows conclusively that effectiveness as a leader depends
less on some innate trait you are born with, and much more on specific
principles that anyone can follow."
In
FFA we hold this same philosophy. Young people can have experiences and
training that help them to become the leaders of tomorrow. Much of the
summer for the Alabama FFA Association is spent providing
leadership-building exercises for many FFA members in Alabama.
Once
the newly elected state officers are installed, they start the very next
week with Blast Off. Blast Off is an intensive leadership-training
course for state officers, which includes all of the other state
officers of the various other Career/Tech student organizations at the
state level. During the training, officers receive instruction on
developing and delivering a speech, time management, written
corre-spondence, building partner relationships, etc.
After
that week is complete, the state FFA officers will depart for more
training at the National Leadership Conference for State Officers (NLCSO)
in Mississippi. The NLCSO training is done by the National FFA Officers
by region. Alabama participates in the region including: Arkansas,
Mississippi, and Louisiana. There they will spend the better part of a
week fully involved in leadership training exercises to prepare them to
be able to train officers themselves, because the next week they will be
the trainers.
The
District Officers Leadership Conference (DOLC) will get underway the
following Friday and Saturday. DOLC is a training program in order to
provide the 19 district FFA officers from each of the three districts,
North, Central, and South, with a leadership workshop. Then the district
officers will in turn prepare to conduct a Chapter Officer Leadership
Workshop (COLW). Can you tell that we love acronyms in the FFA?
A
COLW is held in each of the three districts in order to provide an
opportunity for the officers of local chapters to come together and
participate in leader building activities. These are usually a one-day
activity held at a local school or community college within the
district. |
