By: Sarah Wie
Williamsville East FBLA hosted District 12’s FDM on Monday, October 19 to kick off the new FBLA year. With a newly chartered chapter at St. Francis High School, all five schools of District 12 were represented: Clarence Senior High School, Eden Junior/Senior High School, St. Francis High School, Tonawanda High School, and Williamsville East High School, with a total attendance of 98 people.
The chapter officers of each school were officially inducted through a candle-lit ceremony. Mr. Peter Burakowski, the director of Marketing at 43North, was the keynote speaker of the evening. 43North is the world’s largest business idea competition centered in Buffalo, New York, and awards $5 million in prizes to the winners of this competition.
Following the opening session and keynote speaker, there were three workshop sessions. The first consisted of a team building activity hosted by Shubhangi Mehra and Aniruddha Nrusimha. Each person had a sticky note on their backs that said one part to a typical partnership. For example, one person would have the word “peanut butter” on their back and the other person would have “jelly.” Each person had to ask yes or no questions to other people in order to find out which item or idea they were, and to subsequently find out their partner. The other workshop was the Chapter Presidents’ Meeting, in which Sarah Wie summarized the events to come and contact information for District 12 to all the District 12 chapter officers. The next workshop session consisted of How to Run for State Office, hosted by Mr. Josh Wallace, and the Program of Work explained, hosted by Sarah Wie. In the last session, Shubhangi hosted an interactive Parliamentary Procedure workshop and Aniruddha ran an exciting Public Speaking workshop.
Dinner was catered by Chipotle, along with cookies and a large cake with the 2015-2016 National FBLA logo: “CONNECT” branded across the top.
During the closing session a competitive Battle of the Best was dueled out between the represented chapters of Williamsville East High School and St. Francis High School. Though it was quite close, Sarina Divan of Williamsville East was crowned champion of this FBLA trivia competition.
This event was made a success through the efforts of District 12’s Member of the New York State FBLA Board of Trustees, Ms. Gloria LaSota, the Assistant to the State Officer Adviser, Mr. Josh Wallace, the Williamsville East FBLA adviser, Ms. Anzalone, the Williamsville East FBLA Chapter Officer Team, Sarah Wie, and the chapter officers of Williamsville East High School. District 12 looks forward to a productive, exciting, and rewarding year with FBLA!
