Written by: Emily Pan
The San Luis Obispo FFA Chapter leadership team is excited for a fun-filled 2021-2022 school year! This summer, 16 members of the chapter executive officer and extended leadership team met to plan activities and events for the first “normal” school year anyone has had in a long time. The team gathered outdoors to strengthen their bond, set goals as a chapter, draft activities, and select a theme for the upcoming school year.
The leadership team participated in a variety of team-building activities that they are excited to share with the entire FFA chapter this school year! Throughout the duration of the retreat, each individual was assigned a “secret person” they were to get to know better without having the “secret person” find out, meaning it was necessary to talk to all members of the team. At the end of the retreat, each member was asked to reveal who they believed their “secret person” was and the individuals who were chosen most often meant they did the best job of getting to know the team. The team also learned the Kajabe game, where everyone is in a circle holding ropes and they try to push and pull each other until someone lets go of the rope or touches the can (or wood plank in our case), resulting in elimination. The team also kayaked, hiked, created human pyramids, played follow the leader and heads-up, where Katie Montes was first to guess her word, Mrs. Bates. Another game the leadership team learned was face-off, where two people try to walk past each other without smiling (smiling results in elimination) and Carys Villani and Kea Gildersleeve were the Champions of that activity.
Creating Human Pyramids
Besides bonding as a team and getting to know each other better in preparation for a successful year, the leadership team set goals as a chapter and planned activities for chapter meetings. The leadership team is excited to bring back chapter meeting activities and traditions that have been on hold during the pandemic including the Holiday bake-off, bowling night, dating game, and scare farm. As a chapter, the leadership team decided one major goal of the chapter is to do more FFA activities for the entire chapter and community and work with elementary and middle school students to share more about agriculture. The leadership team will be working hard to bring back “Ag day” and set up activities for younger students to participate in as well as work alongside the Laguna Leadership class to develop workshops for future FFA students. The leadership team will also make it their priority to get to know the younger FFA students (freshmen and sophomores), many of whom have yet to step onto the SLOHS campus, by planning a fun Greenhand week of activities and welcome them to the FFA chapter with a welcome BBQ at the beginning of the school year (be on the lookout for more information in late August)! The team could not be more excited to establish a sense of normalcy and community and share their love of agriculture with everyone!
Last but not least, the SLO FFA Chapter leadership team met to decide on the 2021-2022 theme “Come Together” with the aim of bouncing back to what FFA was like before the pandemic and restore the FFA community familiar to so many. Throughout the year, the leadership team will be putting on activities with this theme in mind. In chapter meetings, welcome events, and so much more, they will be playing songs such as “Changes,” “Starting Over,” and “Come Together” in an effort to put the pandemic in the past and remind everyone to come together. Whether you’re a returning FFA student, joining FFA for the first time, or community member, get ready to “come together” for a memorable year! On behalf of the entire FFA chapter, we look forward to meeting you in August and making it the best year yet!
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