Billings, MT CFC Conference

Chilling Out in Montana

Katie Mullaney

We had snow nearly every day of the conference. A few classes even went outside in the lightly fluttering snow to participate in some cool activities. Students walked on the snow-strewn sidewalk and flung snowballs into a field to demonstrate how some virtual communication can often feel like you’re speaking into an empty abyss, and some of them just…threw snow in my face.

The media track planned part of their presentation that required us all to trek outside to take some pictures. Standing there shivering in the cold and teaching the two photographers how to change the shutter speed on my camera, I couldn’t help but smile. These kids were awesome, and no matter how cold it was, we had a ton of fun. The models, the photographers, and even the editors got into the shoot, planning shots and helping make each picture memorable. The end result was a slideshow everyone got to enjoy during closing ceremonies. Look for the media track slideshows on our website soon!

We were also served a lot of ice cream at this conference, in a variety of forms. Also cold, also delicious. The participants in Billings each shone with their own light, they were all…really cool. Seriously, those were some cool kids. In other words: the entire conference was cool, from the weather, to the desserts, to the students. Thank you, Montana for being so chill.

Table Topics and Cheerfulness

Kelsea Mort

Arriving in Billings, MT, I recognized quite a few of the smiling faces. Katie Anne and I both were in attendance at this conference last year, so I was able to spend some time with students who we met at last year’s conference. These kids never failed to bring a smile to my face. These students were so energetic and excited that you couldn’t help but enjoy every moment with them.

I have the fun job of playing Table Topics (or a form of Parliamentary debate) with the intermediate debate students at each conference. Here in Billings, the debaters did a great job adapting to the new style and enjoyed standing up and giving their opinion on a relevant issue. But not only do they present their opinion, they also have to support it, answer pointed questions and follow a simple version of Robert’s Rules of Order throughout the debate. Here in Montana, the students picked up very quickly on the life skills that could be developed through this style of debate in the short debrief afterwards. I was very impressed with all of them, not just in Table Topics, but they continued to surpass my expectations as the conference went on.

Thank you to those who made it to the Billings conference. You were a huge encouragement and a great reminder for why we love training communicators.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 20th, 2009 at 1:01 pm 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.