The Augusta Conference

From August 19 to 22, the 2009 Communicators for Christ touring team ran their first conference. Read about the reports and musings of Katie Mullaney, Kelsea Mort, and Austin Luce.

Captured

By Katie Mullaney

There isn’t much I wouldn’t take a picture of, from the interior of a motor home to interns to students to tacos. This works out perfectly since one of my most time-consuming and important jobs on tour is taking pictures throughout the conference that will be shared with the participants at the conclusion of the event.

As we kicked off the tour in Georgia this past week, I spent a lot of time getting to know the white balance of the facility…as well as the participants. scrambling from class to class in order to get snapshots of each and every exciting activity, I noticed a few things about the people we, the interns, were teaching. The first is that they are people. Before the conference began, I had thought of them as little person-shaped beings that would be walking around the conference, attending classes, performing in fun debates and group interpretations, and generally being photographed by me. But once I stopped to talk to or take pictures of these kids I saw them as what they truly are: real people who were really listening to what I said.

In Augusta, Georgia, I encountered smiling 7-11 year-old speakers who couldn’t wait to pose with their torn up pieces of paper, debaters showing off their taco-pie-chart-making skills, and speakers who overcame their fears and stood up to speak time after time.

Scrolling through the images I captured this week, it’s hard not to stop at each one and wonder about the person in it, what they were feeling that day, how they decided to smile in that particular way, or if they wanted their picture taken at all. As tour goes on, I don’t want to lose that feeling. Because every person is important, every life we touch, every student, parent, or janitor we impact has their own story. Everyone’s someone, and if I can capture just a little bit of who someone is in a still photograph, I think I’ve done my job. That’s just part of the reason that I’m so excited to take pictures of, and get to know, everyone at the conferences to come!

Little Blessings

Kelsea Mort

As excited as I was for the start of our first Beginning Public Speaking conference for students age twelve and under, my expectations were far surpassed by the reality of it all. These students were amazing! Their genuine smiles and enthusiastic curiosity were truly inspiring. Attempting to channel all of that fun energy into creative learning was a challenge, and a great experience! They were totally captivated by Phil’s crazy juggling skills and all of the apprentice’s imaginative ‘cheers’. After all four different activities and presentations, I decided that this was one of the most incredible groups of kids I have ever had the opportunity to spend time with and I have been blessed by each of them.

I Saved 15% of Research Time This Year By Playing GECCO

By Austin Luce

One down, Eleven more to go! We just finished our first conference in Augusta, Georgia. I have the privilege of directing the GECCO (Green Environmental Competitive/Cooperative Operation) Game.

The game is designed to help students understand policies, environmental policies to be specific, and the interaction between conflicting values, in this case, the values of competition and cooperation. The students cooperated with their teammates, while at the same time competing against other teams to gain points. The teams strategized, passed federal environmental laws, worked with, and against, other teams, and completed zany activities assigned to them by the staff, such as telling jokes to the staff members and protesting in the simulated senate chambers.

I enjoyed watching the students having fun, while they gained an understanding of the legislative branch of the government and the values that motivate our legislators. game helps to build negotiation skills and critical thinking skills, both of which are skills that are necessary for a cultural communicator to have to be able to influence people. As I reflect on the past week, what I most enjoyed was seeing students gain knowledge and public speaking experience.

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 12th, 2009 at 10:41 am and is filed under Conference Tour 2009. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.