Members of Windsor Central High School’s Student Council are bringing new ideas on engaging the student body and community at large after spending much of their Thanksgiving break at the New York State Council on Leadership and Student Activities (NYS CLSA) conference in Syracuse.
The group heard from three keynote speakers and broke into discussion groups with students from across the state to share their best ideas on fundraising and community engagement.
“We learned positive ways to impact our school by making connections with senior citizens in our community and different events to connect with different populations in our community,” said WCHS sophomore Grace Reed, who plans on running for the CLSA Board next year. “I made so many new connections with people from so many places. Some were 20 minutes from where we were, and some were from hours away.”
WCHS senior Farah Fenescey has attended the CLSA conference since she was in sixth grade. She also won Windsor’s Outstanding Student Leader Award.
“I got to meet a lot of new people and learn new ways to make our school a better place. We’ve talked about bringing in a motivational speaker. We have one we saw at the conference last year coming to (WCHS to) help kids feel better about themselves and more motivated to do their schoolwork to the best of their ability,” said Fenescey.
In short, the students want others to feel the motivation they experienced at the conference.
“The first speaker we had said, ‘Movement makes things happen. You have to pursue something you want. Otherwise, you won’t get it. You can’t get anywhere in life without moving initially,’” said WCHS sophomore Ella Stonehouse.
A highlight of the conference is students developing service-learning projects with their advisors at both state and local levels for implementation throughout New York State communities.
“I would encourage people to join Student Council not just to go to this conference because it’s an amazing opportunity, but also to do more things for this school,” said Fenescey.