News : VS FFA officers attend Leadership Training event

VS FFA officers pose for a group photo at the COLT event.

COLT: VS FFA officers attended Chapter Officer Leadership Training event.

On Wednesday, June 4th, the Vinton-Shellsburg FFA chapter officer team went to Hawkeye Community College for the annual Chapter Officer Leadership Training (COLT). At COLT, FFA officers go to different workshops to help them become outgoing officers. This year the officers got to experience four interactive workshops, plus the usual session of learning the duties of their specific offices. The Four workshops include: “Fish Bowl,” “Connect,” “Time Challenge,” and “True Colors.”

At the “Fish Bowl” workshop, members learned that some things that people see on the web may make them think poorly of the members. They were taught to be more respectful and to be a person that others look up to and admire, rather than to put down or think poorly upon.

The “Connect” workshop was for connecting with people. This workshop was not about connecting with FFA members, but for connecting with the members of the community and “Stakeholders.” Stakeholders are people who have the ability to say “no” to a program, and by connecting with those people, they are more likely to not take away the program but to really understand why the people need the organization.

Along with the “Fish Bowl” and “Connect” workshops, the officers also went to a “time Challenge” workshop. At this workshop, the chapter officers learned how to better use their time. After the officers shared with each other what they use to procrastinate with (such as Facebook, Twitter, etc.) the State and District Officers gave tips on how to not have such a distraction and to accomplish more in their life. They talked about when you have to do something, such as homework, but you want to get on Facebook, set a goal for yourself to finish so much of the homework then to check Facebook for a small period of time. This allows you to work harder on the homework to get it done faster so that you can do something that you really want to.

Finally, there was the “True Colors” workshop. The FFA officers were each given a personality test at this workshop, where they would rank themselves from 1 to 4 based on the different traits in each box. At the very end they added up their numbers to figure out their color. The four different colors; orange, blue, green, and gold, all have different traits that describe the personality of the beholder.

Orange describes people who are spontaneous, risk-takers that are optimistic and bring excitement to society. They are rather competitive and like to be the center of attention though, which can sometimes be a good thing but other times people may find them a bit annoying. People with the blue personality color are often in search of themselves, while needing to feel unique. They encourage others to be who they are and connect easily to their fellow people. The green color describes people who are very curious and question everything. They like to make intelligent decisions and seek to understand the world. Then there is gold. Gold is for those who value rules and traditions. They enjoy positions of authority and believe that work comes before play.

The collaboration of all the colors makes it so that the chapter will have a more interactive and unique experience while being in FFA. The Vinton-Shellsburg FFA chapter does have all of the personality colors within the team. Riley Ries was the team’s only green, John Eden, Katie Isbell, and Drew Wiley were all gold, Sydney Walker and Jessica Alderson ended up having the blue personalities, and Stevie Henry and Emily Riesch got the color orange.

In the end, the Vinton-Shellsburg FFA chapter officer team had a great time experiencing the different workshops and will hopefully better the chapter with the new knowledge that they brought back from COLT.

-- Jessica Alderson, Co-Reporter