|
|
Ohio District Convention |
 |
||||||
| DCON is held annually, and is a
great way to meet other key clubbers from all over Ohio. And meet them we
did, for over 400 members attended the convention in the Hyatt Regency
hotel/ convention center in Columbus. From our club, 7 members went. Our
current leadership, Hannah, Monica, Jake, and Josh; some past leadership,
Karlie and Alyssa; and me, Brian. We left school early Friday to travel to Hyatt Regency. After check-in and convention registration, we headed down to the river near our hotel, and Starbucks to just chill until the kick-off session at 7 PM in the hotel ballroom, where all the district officers were introduced. The speaker chosen to kick off the convention was Mr. Bill Gladwell, a 'psychological illusionist'. Hypnotism, in short. He chose about 15 people to come up on the stage to get hypnotized, and anybody in the audience could do it. Thus, Josh and Monica both tried to get hypnotized, but both gave up before the end. On stage, Mr. Gladwell was getting the people on stage to do crazy things like pretending they loved the person next to them one second, then smelling a strange stench from them the next. I don't really buy into that kind of stuff (and there was a number of small details I noticed that supported that theory), but you couldn't deny it was funny nonetheless. After that, we had a spirit rally, which consisted of three events. Jake was chosen to represent our group in musical chairs, however, he was the first one to drop out. Our team (the black team) ended up not winning a single thing. That pretty much ended the kick-off, and rolled straight into... a dance? Yes, the first dance of the weekend. I'm not the dancing type, really, but I wasn't the only one. I stayed until nearly the end, pretending to look like I could dance by merely swinging to the rhythm. I think I got through that all right. The next day started out with breakfast (of course), and more 'professional stuff', including the presentation of awards. All of our 2007-2008 officers won a distinguished officer certificate and ribbon, and Amanda Bouffard scored one for Bulletin Editor. The absence of a Distinguished Webmaster award has yet to be looked into. After that was all over with (including the caucus, where we heard candidate speeches), we attended the various forums available. The first session forums dealt with leadership positions (as well as Bulletin Editors, Webmasters and PR. I went to that one, of course). The second and third sessions dealt with various issues in the club, like running for higher offices, and Key Leader. I went to the forums on creative projects, and Key Club recruitment (Incidentally, expect to see more on new member recruitment soon; we agreed it was one of our priorities after we found out about a school that had 200 Key Clubbers out of a school our size. There was also a school that had 200 Key Clubbers out of 600 students). We had pizza in the hotel food court after that (well, anything we wanted, actually, but most chose pizza), and one member of another club beckoned me to sit with her. The others from our club told me to ask her to the dance, but can you really ask a person to dance that has crutches? I always thought it would have been a touchy topic for them... Anyway, after we all ate lunch, it was time for the fourth and final forum session... hold your breath, it's a... Salsa dancing forum! Yes, your webmaster (and Jake and Josh) learned the basics of salsa dancing that day. It's actually not THAT hard, and it's kind of fun. After that we had a whole 3 hours of chill time in our rooms. Or rather, we spent most of the time talking in the hallway. Next up was dinner, and then more 'professional stuff' mixed with the talent competition. Some unique stuff there. Anyway, that rolled into the SECOND dance of the weekend, the Governor's Ball, which was fully a formal dance. I could go off in a few different directions about this dance, but I'll just say we all had fun that night, and at the risk of being too blunt, leave it at that. The last day came, breakfast and even more 'professional stuff', including the introduction of the new district leadership, and the introduction of the international convention. That was basically it, really. We won a service project award for Lauren's Legacy, too. The governor called the convention closed, and that was the entire convention! It was really a fun time, and possibly a candidate for my best weekend ever. Heck, I could probably say it WAS my best weekend ever. - Brian Orchosky |
 |
