Lisa reports on the National Youth Congress
published 3/26/2008
Every year the National Youth Congress brings outstanding pony clubbers from across the country together for two days of incredible speakers, leadership workshops, and policy development.
This year, my congress had the privilege to meet with 6 outstanding alumni, each with their own unique pony club, and real life, story: Erika de Papp, chief of internal medicine at Angell Animal Medical Center in Boston; Russell Gilfus, a lawyer whose DC encouraged him to be the first in his family to go to college; Liz Halliday, a professional sports commentator, 3-day eventer, AND race car driver; Kevin Price, Executive Director to the Chenango-Delaware-Otsego Workforce Investment Board; Sharon Turner, who holds a Ph.D. in neuroscience and is a primary examiner in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office; and Carey Williams, Assistant Professor at Rutgers University whose research focuses on nutrition and how it affects conditioning sport horses. Each had their own story to tell, but it all came back to the skills we learn in Pony Club can help us in real life – we just have to recognize what we’ve been given! When we weren’t learning about these six amazing people, we were learning about ourselves.
In the workshop “Moral Code”, we developed moral codes for both ourselves, and the group as a whole (reduced to 3 words, ours was Excellence, Respect, and Maturity). In the workshop “Animal Personalities”, we learned about how personality types and how we work in groups (I’m a Lion, which means I’m a strong leader, but I always want to do things by myself instead of asking for help!).
Perhaps the most exciting part of the NYC was talking with the USPC Board of Governors in focus groups, where we discussed everything from how rallies develop teamwork, to how pony club should deal with things like iPods and cell phones. We also got to develop our own policy to present to the B.O.G. This year’s policy was the implementation of a National Youth Board – look for more about that in the future!
Speaking of the future, each delegate was given the assignment of creating a project in their own region that would improve it somehow. I’m very excited about my project, and cannot wait to implement it! The NYC was an amazing experience, it was so exciting to meet with so many other PC members who are as excited and passionate about pony club as I am, and meeting and talking to the alumni was extremely inspirational. I really want to take this opportunity thank everybody in Lakeshore Region for helping me make this trip, I learned so much, and I can’t wait to apply it to pony club back home!
