The main component of B.L.T. Saturday
is the Leadership sessions, adapted from activities
conducted at LTC and the NASC National Conference. Delegates are given the chance to experience each of these
sessions with their Junior Counselor, and two or three Senior Counselors.
The Student Council Leadership Committee works with our Advisor, Mr. Miller (who
is NJASC Executive Director, and has spoken at the NASC National Conference about starting
Leadership Training programs), to determine the sessions used. Sessions
used at B.L.T. Saturday have included those described below:
-
Speaking With Ease! What
makes a good public speaker? Practice, practice, practice!
First, delegates will gain awareness of several important principles of
effective Public Speaking. Then they will get the chance to try out their skills,
with peer evaluation and staff support to help them examine their public speaking behaviors.
The goal is to emphasize the good ones and
become aware of the not so good ones...
-
Elected to Lead Everyone! Whether
you were elected to or volunteered for Student Council, you are now in a
position to represent and speak for all students in your school. But do
you truly speak for ALL of them? Do
you really know who your fellow students are, and how does this affect what you
think about them and what they think about you? How does this affect you and your Student Council? You'll have a
lot of fun as you find out what "headbands" you would like to wear...
-
Effective Communication! Do people listen what you have to say? Do you
really listen to other people? There is a big difference between
“hearing” and “listening”. How
well you listen to others directly affects how well you represent your fellow
students. It
also affects how well they will listen when you have something to say. Find out for yourself how good a listener you really are in this
session…
-
T.E.A.M.
Time! T.E.A.M. means "Together Everyone Achieves
More". What qualities do you look for in an effective
leader? What effects do different types of leadership have on
group performance? Delegates will find out some answers to these
questions through a fun activity that clearly shows the difference between transactional and transformational leadership…
-
True Colors! You can't effectively lead a group unless you really know who you are leading. Delegates will explore and discover some of their own personal characteristics, as well as strategies to work with and lead individuals with different characteristics…
-
Understanding Conflict! How do you react to and handle conflict? When should it be avoided, when should it be allowed to happen, and when should it be provoked? Is conflict always such a bad thing, or can it be the sign of leadership and progress? Delegates will find out how they deal with conflict, and when to apply different strategies to make the most of it …
There are also activities to
make B.L.T. Saturday feel like a true Leadership Camp. The Junior Counselors
coordinate welcoming activities and icebreakers (like those at Summer LTC) before the three leadership
sessions. Icebreakers are done within the delegate groups, so
that each delegate gets to better know their fellow group members before the
leadership sessions began. In the "B.L.T.
Olympics", delegate groups compete against each other in a series of
fun games that test their leadership skills and their ability to
work together as a group. Junior Counselors prepared and lead each
delegate group while Senior Counselors run the events, just like at Summer LTC.
The day ends with lunch, and a
special slide show. Throughout the day, we take many pictures of delegates, staff members, and all the activities taking place.
While the delegates eat lunch, we put together a slide show to music that is
shown to the delegates after lunch as a concluding activity. The slide show was handed out at
the 2004 NASC National in Las Vegas to those who attend Mr.
Miller's roundtable sessions on starting Leadership Training programs in
schools.
We were honored to win state and
national awards for our program, which is now well established.
More importantly, B.L.T. Saturday has resulted in better prepared Student
Council Executives, more student participation in our Student Council, an
increased interest in student leadership, and more involvement with other
schools in our community. It has also served as a valuable recruiting
tool, getting other schools more interested in LTC-type activities, and
ultimately in joining and/or becoming more active in the NJASC.
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