North Country Career Center Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA) students, The Association of Marketing Students (DECA) and Skills USA attended the Vermont Career and Technical Student Organization (CTSO) conference on Tuesday October, 9 2007 at the Barre Civic Center in Barre Vermont. The conference was presented by FOCUS Training and was designed to empower participants as leaders. Students learned to make an impression on others with their professionalism, poise and understanding of teamwork, emerge from their comfort zones with trust building and challenge management skills, and embrace clear and effective communication skills. The students also learned the importance of communication by playing a game in which one group had to explain to another group what a Lego structure looked like, and the second group had to build the identical structure solely from the first group’s verbal directions.

"It was very interesting to meet people from other groups not just FBLA and explain what FBLA is. It was also interesting to meet people from other schools, it was a lot of fun," Brittany Cote, President of FBLA, stated about the CTSO conference. Danny Miele, Chapter President of DECA commented "I had a lot of fun at the CTSO Conference. It was very educational, and the presenters were very entertaining and I learned a lot from them." Cory Holmes, a member of Skills USA, who attended the CTSO Conference added, "I learned the importance of meeting new people and networking. It helped me with my confidence when confronted by a new group of people."

FBLA, DECA and Skills USA members will apply the skills they acquired at the conference in their local chapter and throughout their community.

Release October 10, 2007