National Conference Perspectives: This Year’s FBLA NLC
I can’t count how many times I’ve been to international competition for DECA and FBLA. I’ve even been to the Mid-level portion and the collegiate portion of FBLA-PBL. Yeah…I’ve been in it for a long time.
This year was definitely a first, however, when the President and CEO of FBLA sat with us at a picnic table during one evening of the conference. We chatted for about half an hour about different things related to our chapter, our state management team, and the national presence of FBLA. It occurred to me, while speaking to him, that I’ve made many mistakes over the years while traveling with teenagers to conferences, and I wish I had known so many different things about the process.
My presence in DECA and FBLA are going to be sunsetting in just a few years, and I owe it to both organizations to try to support and encourage newer and less experienced advisers. Hopefully my insights and experiences will make the journey better—and maybe a little less expensive—than it would have been.
Highlights Of Going To Nationals
Evening activity
One of the best things about a state or national conference with a CTSO is when they plan something within the host city for all of the kids to enjoy together. We heard, for example, that next year’s FBLA night will be a buy-out of Universal Orlando, and know that DECA will offer discounted tickets for Disneyland in Anaheim. Those activities appeal to that age group, and are fantastic bonding experiences. This year was a “Block Party” concept at a huge, famous park, and had tons of food trucks, inflatable sports, a DJ and a very active dance floor.
Walkable hotel location
One of the key things for both state and national conferences is the quality and location of your hotel. I’ve been on both sides of that coin, staying at the Disneyland Hotel itself with DECA, and staying 45 minutes from the venue with nothing around the hotel for kids to do or eat. The key to making any location work is to scope it out in advance, so you can pack accordingly. We have done grocery shopping near the hotel, and we’ve ordered Walmart delivery—doesn’t matter which it is as long as our kids get fed.
Set up for presentation events
This year, there were far fewer events open for audience viewing at FBLA NLC, which was a bit frustrating. However, thinking about my beloved DECA, there is never an option for an audience during finals either, and we do just fine. The set-up for presentation events varies from year to year, and venue to venue, and my best advice is to prep the kids for all kinds of potential scenarios. If they are only able to present in dead silence with only one judge, you aren’t preparing them for the potential options they may face.
Preparing For The Event Itself
Practice sessions
I’ve already blogged about how we prep for both state and national competition, and I encourage you to read those articles to get valuable insights and tips for training your competitors. When you are considering nationals, be sure to do some team-building outside of competitive teams—roommates. These kids will be in a hotel room for almost a week with kids they might not be as familiar with—don’t forget, only a small percentage of state competitors will go on to nationals—so you need to make sure they are as comfortable as possible.
Keep them informed
Along the same line of team-building, create a Remind or text group with all of the people who will be going to nationals, and make it active! We assign an officer to this job—it is our social media vice president usually—and their job is to keep the notifications and information flowing to all of the competitors. We have found that this helps relieve a lot of the stress and anxiety our younger competitors feel about traveling without their families.
Send out lists
It’s also important that the competitors and their parents/guardians hear from the adults who will be on the trip. Because of that, we develop a completely separate email list that includes all of the kids and their parent/guardian, and we use that list for information from the Advisers. I will send out a list of good websites to use to study for events, or a complete packing list, so they have an idea of what to expect. A very complete, detailed itinerary comes out to this group about a week before we leave, and it helps stop the pounds of emails about different details for the trip.
Best Things We Did
Kids booked airfare
Some schools make you do a group airline booking, and keep the information for all of your travelers to nationals. I’ve done it that way. It’s not bad—IF everyone is on the same page and schedule. This year, we had four of 24 kids flying in from different airports, and five kids leaving at different times to go different places. No thank you! We had each kid book the assigned flights, and give us their confirmation number. Not only did this make the family more accountable, but it helped us devise a comprehensive travel plan for everybody.
Detailed itinerary
I mentioned the itinerary…and it’s a beast of a document. It includes everything about everybody as a group and individually. Not only do we have flights on there, but even general session of the conference, every competitive event date and time, and every team dinner and activity we have planned. This itinerary has saved us several times with administrators and parents who claimed to be uninformed about some element of our plans, and it helps us stay on track when we are getting overwhelmed on site.
CityPass
This is our go to in every city we visit, and it is usually the very best way to do a city—I even used it in London this summer! While I wouldn’t say we maximize the savings the CityPass can have, it certainly saves us time and stress while we are touring the city. The only inconvenience for us with this service is that they rely primarily on digital tickets, but we needed paper tickets. A quick email and telephone follow-up solved this problem for us.
Kept Kids Busy
In all these years, I’ve heard of many different kids getting into trouble on a national conference trip for a wide variety of reasons. Never, not once, was the kid engaged in conference or chapter activities when they got in trouble. It’s usually at the hotel, and generally after curfew. We don’t have this problem, because we keep our kids very busy—and together—all day and into the evening, so there is no time for them to get into mischief. We are there to participate in everything in the conference center, so that is where we spend our days. In the evenings, we have a team activity, ending with a team meeting every night. I’m not saying it can’t happen, but there are absolutely ways you can minimize their opportunities.
Travel Problems
One time, when kids bought their own plane tickets, a kid bought a one-way ticket and not a return flight. Once, a kid flew directly from HOSA to FBLA without telling me she sprained her ankle at HOSA and came off the plane in a wheelchair. Once a parent showed up at the airport and informed me they were going with us.
Stuff is going to happen.
The best thing you can do is stay calm, keep your head, and work the problem. I will say that—basically in my whole life—there isn’t much that money can’t solve. That’s why I always travel with a school credit card. If something is going to go wrong, I need to be able to pay whatever is necessary to make it right, whether that is covering hotel costs when a flight is canceled or paying for kids’ overweight luggage.
This is simply a business trip. Take a company card.
How Did We Do?
I’ve had many years when I’ve totally gotten skunked in competition. Last year, traveling with 20 kids to FBLA Nationals, I was convinced we would return home with trophies, only to be totally left swinging in the wind with crying and disappointed teenagers.
Not this year, Boo Boo.
We placed four kids in the top ten in the world. Four. It’s a record for me, and since all four were underclassmen, we are poised for fantastic years from now until I retire.
Notes For Future Patti
I’ve been extremely fortunate with my results at CTSO state and national competition. I even got inducted in the FBLA Wall of Fame this year.
But next year we start from scratch again.
New kids, new competitions, greater competition and bigger challenges. Will we be ready?
I have no idea, but this I can guarantee: Travel is going to be expensive. Get busy on fundraising right now.
THANK YOU FOR READING THIS FAR
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