A lot of sports teams that compete at high levels from our school receive recognition for their achievements, but other teams don’t receive the same amount of attention. We recently had a Conduct of Chapter Meetings team represent us in Indianapolis at the National FFA convention. The Conduct of Chapter Meetings team was composed of Devon Byers (President), Emma Atherton (Secretary), Bryce Danko (Reporter), Riley Danko (Vice President), Trey Hess (Sentinel), Nathan Lesh (Advisor), and Lydia Miller (Treasurer) and was very successful at nationals.
The Conduct of Chapter Meetings (CCM) competition requires a team to demonstrate their knowledge of how to run a chapter meeting using parliamentary procedure. There are two parts to the competition; there is a multiple-choice test and a presentation. The presentation starts with opening ceremonies which involve each member describing the purpose of their office and the call to order. They then do the new business portion of the meeting which is the main point of the competition. Once they handle all the pending business, they go into closing ceremonies and adjournment. After adjournment, each member is asked some general knowledge questions by the judges. They lose points for any slip-ups in opening or closing ceremonies, any incorrect questions, and any improper handling of business or sloppy debates in the new business section.
The new business portion of the meeting is nearly all improvisation. The competitors receive a card that has a main motion, or topic of business, and four other motions which assist in the handling of the main motion. Some examples of what these other motions could be are Recess or Refer to a Committee (the purpose of these are pretty clear). The card that the team gets is different every time they do a run-through and they only have one minute to look over the card before the meeting begins. Four of the six debating members will be assigned one of the other motions on the card while any of the six may make the main motion. Each member must make their assigned motion (if they have one) properly for full points, and they each must have at least three debates which are graded accordingly. The chairperson, or president, is scored on how they handle what occurs in the meeting. If you are interested and would like to see the presentation part of the competition in action, the National FFA Organization posts the finals round on their Youtube channel. Although this year’s finals haven’t been posted yet, you can view the 2019 finals here.
Our team had been practicing since January and putting many hours into preparation for their competitions. They all had full schedules during the school day and even after school a lot of them participated in sports so they didn’t have a lot of time to practice. Their solution was to come in at 6:30 before school for practice at least three times a week. Their dedication has definitely shown through with their final results.
In this FFA competition, they competed at the area, regional, state, and national levels. They placed first at the area, regional, and state-level which resulted in them representing Pennsylvania at the National FFA Convention in Indianapolis, Indiana. That is, if this was any other year. Quarantine restrictions made it so they couldn’t have 304 people coming from all over the country just for this competition. As a solution to that, the first round of nationals was held through zoom and only the top 12 would compete in person at the national convention in October. Our wonderful team finessed their way into the top 12 and secured their spot in the semi-finals.
Now, imagine everything I said before about the run-through portion of the competition, but add an audience. Suddenly, it becomes more than an exercise in memorization, knowledge, and improvisation, but also a public speaking competition. Since we are still coming out of a pandemic, a lot of our team’s competing was done over zoom. This means the first time they were actually competing in front of an audience was in the semi-finals of nationals, which, needless to say, is a lot of pressure.
With the odds against them, our team marched out to Indianapolis and did quite well. Their official placing was 5th, but their overall rank is closer to 9-10th out of 38 teams. Now, because they made it to the semifinals, each member received a gold medal for their efforts. Those other 38 teams have gone through the same area, regional, and state level as our heroes, and likely had even more experience because states like Texas (one of the final four) have multiple regional levels because of how big FFA is in their state. You can view the complete results of the competition here.
I spoke to each member about their time in the competition and they had a lot to say. All members described it as a positive experience and they learned a lot from it. Bryce described the competition as “life-changing” and spoke about how he “...bonded with states like Florida, Ohio, and Kentucky just because we all did the CCM competition.” Lydia agreed that the competition was life-changing, saying “I cherished every moment we had together because I knew it wouldn’t last forever.” Nathan is appreciative of the experience he got from the competition, and what he learned from it. “It was nice to work closely with a good group of people on the CCM team,” he said.
I also asked a few of them what their favorite memory from the competition was, and they all had varying answers. Trey really enjoyed the experience of going to nationals. He specifically enjoyed, “...eating out at different restaurants in Indianapolis.” Emma had a bit more of a specific memory, “I found it enjoyable when we were practicing in the hotel room the night before the competition and we used the space in between the queen beds as chairs.”
Devon described being the last team to compete, and his experience in the holding room:
Every other group had already been called out except us and the people from Kentucky, we were the last ones left in the holding room. So to make the time go faster the people from Kentucky came over and started talking to us. We were talking about how we call things by different names because we are from different states and how the cultures of some states are different. And somehow we got on
the topic of how Bryce Danko fried and ate raccoon one time. And one of the girls from Kentucky said, “Wait, y’all eat raccoon up there?” So for that brief moment, Bryce had someone convinced that we ate raccoons in PA.
Riley had a lot of favorite memories from the trip. Here is what she had to say:
Honestly, I think my favorite memory has to be reminded of the impact we’re having. Leaving the poor guy running the restaurant all by himself a generous tip, representing Pennsylvania and inspiring those younger than us, sharing the goodness of agriculture throughout our community, etc. When other people see how we carry ourselves and how we act out of love and they feel compelled to point it out, that feeling is so rewarding. Other than that, all, I mean all, of the behind the scenes moments -- the plane ride, donuts at practice, tests on the bus, Nevin eating a glacier at dinner, the kazoo, all of the little things that help to pull the whole overall memory/trip together.
The final thing I asked the members of the conduct team was for their favorite main motion from the competition. They went through a lot of main motions because each time they practiced and competed there was a new motion to debate, so I was looking for any that stood out to them enough to be remembered. Some of them were unable to recall a favorite, and reasonably so because of how many they did. Here is what some of them said:
“My favorite main motion was, ‘I move that our chapter place wreaths on graves at the veterans’ cemetery’” -Bryce Danko
“My best main motion was when I moved that our chapter buy turf fields for the school.” -Lydia Miller
“My favorite motion card is tricky to pinpoint since we did so many! Anything related to plants, America, farmers, and hunting I greatly enjoyed!” -Nathan Lesh
“I can’t think of a specific main motion, but the ones that the team had strong opinions on were always the funniest to watch.” - Devon Byers
“... [T]he motions that pertain to our community were particularly cool to debate. Ultimately, in the competition, we’re our own person and bring different ideas to the table, so being able to hear how members of the team were thinking about helping the community or were devoted to doing so already, was really inspiring. I feel as though our group, and even our FFA, is always looking to give back and do good to those around us, so hearing everyone’s perspectives on how we could build up the community was so awesome.” -Riley Danko
I have seen this group develop from a mishmash of people that KP wrangled together, into an excellent team over the last two years. As their coach, I am incredibly proud of how far they’ve come and I am excited to see what paths they take in the future. I could not be more proud of this team and all they have accomplished.