SOAR Conference
SOAR Conference is a leadership conference for students in grades seven and eight, helping them bridge the gap into high school by providing them with mentorship, and visibility regarding community opportunities. During Conference, students are matched with high school mentors and are offered an insight into what high school life is like, as well as go through various fun workshops and games where they learn some ways to improve their soft skills for better success. At the end of the day, students leave with a new community, knowing that they have people to rely on for advice and support throughout the next four years of their life.
Conference Chair, 2019–2020
For SOAR Conference 2020, I was one of three Conference Chairs, and led the preparation for all the aspects of conference. Though Conference was cancelled due to COVID-19, I still learnt a lot throughout the months of planning and effort that we put in.
Leadership Developers
A huge part of the success of conference comes from the leadership developers who volunteer their time and energy to become mentors for each of the young children entering conference. One of my roles was helping interview each of the applicants and work to ensure that they had the qualities we were looking for in the mentors. We interviewed over 150 applicants and chose 30 applicants. During the process, I was expected to exhibit impartially and ensure that all the candidates were looked at with an unbiased view.
Executive Team
One of the first tasks I did with my co-chairs was set up an executive team, unlike previous years we chose not to wait till September to pick our executive team but did so during the summer, so that we could start working prior to school starting. After conducting interviews, and choosing our team, we sat down with the entire team, as well as each portfolio to understand what they wanted the year to look like, as well as provide them with an outline regarding their main tasks and the associated timelines. We set up a task management system for all the members so that we could keep track of the progress of each portfolio, and step in as required.
Funding and Sponsorship
Although we were a student-led conference, we had many overheads to take care of, which would not be covered by student and volunteer fees. As a result, we sought out external sponsors to help us offset the costs that we had either through monetary sponsorships, or goods. In the months leading up to conference we were able to get over $8,000 in monetary corporate sponsorships, and were working with local branches of companies such as Starbucks and Quesada for non-monetary contributions.
Mentorship Program
As part of a collaboration with the Rotary Club of Mississauga, we offered half our seats to students from low-income families at a heavily subsidized cost, however we found that every year there were always more students who wanted to come, both from the Rotary Club and schools from all over the district. In an effort to meet with the increase in demand that we were seeing, we decided to launch the SOAR Conference Mentorship Program where we worked towards branching our the program to hold in other schools around the district. Working with teachers, and students around the district we conducted interviews and began the process of introducing our prospects to the conference and its operations.
Head of Conference Committee, 2018–2019
As a part of SOAR 2019, I was one of the Heads of Conference Committee, which put me in charge of arranging both the food services for the day of conference, as well as onboarding and training the majority of the volunteers who were helping with operations.
Onboarding and Training Volunteers
Volunteers in the Conference Committee are in charge of serving food, running the games and workshops, setting up/taking down tables and chairs, and all the behind the scenes work that has to get done during the day of Conference. As the Head of Conference Committee, one of my roles was to come up with a comprehensive training session which would help them understand the purpose of conference, the importance of their job, and how to successfully handle any problems they face during the day of conference. I worked with teacher supervisors and other executives to ensure that all standards were being upheld, and dealt with any, and all problems my team had.
Arranging Food Services
Similar to any day-long event with teenagers, we needed to have food at Conference, all of which had to be arranged under a budget of $2,500. Working with local restaurants, we arranged for lunch and dinner to be catered, along with an ice cream truck, which we got a discount from. With the remaining $900, we worked to create a budget-friendly, healthy breakfast which we simply purchased in bulk from Costco, using our out of the box resources.
Head of Entertainment, 2017–2018
In my first year as an executive with SOAR Conference, I was one of the Heads of Entertainment, and was tasked with reaching out to organizations within the community who were willing to work with incoming high school students to invite them to our Opportunity Fair. I also helped come up with the storyline for the day of Conference and executed our mealtime entertainment.
Opportunity Fair
One of the biggest workshops we have during the day of conference is our Opportunity Fair, where we bring in local organization and community clubs to bring awareness to the delegates regarding places they could get involved in. In the months leading up to conference, I worked with various organizations such as the Brampton Library, Peel GEMS, VEX Robotics and others to ensure that they had all the information they needed to successfully set up a booth and present their information to the delegates.
Mealtime Activities
Working with the Conference Chairs for the year, we came up with a storyline to tie together all the aspects of conference that year. As someone who greatly enjoys putting on a show, and trying on different hats, I helped put together an entertaining show for the delegates to enjoy, while helping explain some of the aspects of the day we had planned.
