On Oct. 7, 10 members of the freshman class cabinet packed their bags and headed to Seaside, Oregon. No, they didn’t travel to eat elephant ears and hang out on the beach, but to attend the Oregon Association Student Council Fall Conference, a conference that teaches student groups around Oregon leadership skills. Cleveland was represented by freshman class cabinet members Stella Robertson, Bella Miller, Nick Paesler, Tiffany Go, Rachel Miller, Kira Chan, Sophie Marcus, Mia Johnson, Gwen Kaliszewski, and Natalie Cheechov. Over 100 school groups attended, bringing in close to 1600 students.

According to the its website, “The Oregon Association of Student Councils is a non-profit member association, serving middle and high schools throughout the state. We provide leadership development to both students and advisors.” The freshman class cabinet found out about the conference from their class advisor, Susie Brighouse.

The conference was very informative. “We attended idea-shares on certain topics, which was basically an open forum where you could share what your school was doing in that area and other people could ask questions about how it works or how to implement that idea at their school,” said Bella Miller, a member of the support staff on the freshman class cabinet. Stella Robertson, class publicity representative, said, “It featured two motivational speakers, one woman taught us about taking a stand and how she lost her sister because she didn’t. The second was more of an entertainment speaker.  He did like rhymes about life and such.”

There were also different workshops available to the students, ranging from how to host a game based on Survivor, to cheering up students through the use of messages and small gifts. The workshops were all centered around creating a better atmosphere for the school.

Robertson commented, “Because of my position, I went to a social media and technology idea share. I learned a lot about how to correctly run school social medias and even some ideas on fundraising.” Miller has a different position on cabinet, and said, “I learned a lot about what other schools are doing and learned some new leadership techniques and ideas, specifically some fundraising and service project ideas.”

Both the girls agreed that the highlight of the trip was getting to bond with fellow cabinet members and getting to know other people from schools throughout Oregon. As stated by Robertson, “Staying in a big house together really made us closer and more effective as a student council.”

Both Miller and Robertson encourage future Cleveland student groups to attend in future years. Miller explained, “I definitely would encourage other leadership groups to go  because it was such a great bonding experience with my cabinet members and I think it would make our leadership program at Cleveland stronger because we could get new ideas from other schools.”