National Conference - Take 1

I am really behind on my blog posts. I wanted to write a statement every day while I was at the 2008 PRSSA National Conference, but, as we all can see, this hasn't happened. Our room has one Internet ethernet cord and we brought two computers. Needless to say, I am not occupying the Internet as much as what I usually do.

Anyways, Ohio Northern presented our Chapter Development Session on "Making the Most of Your Chapter: A Guide on How to Use Resources" Friday afternoon. Overall, I feel we did an excellent job even though we did run over on time; I was slightly upset about this since the rest of the presentation went well. However, even though we were the best CDS (not to brag), room for improvement is necessary for all of us, especially me. Although, I am the toughest critic, especially on myself, so I don't know if I have any room to speak.

Despite my personal opinions about our CDS, I am quite ecstatic with the end results thus far. I was a CDS presenter last year as well and heard people talking about our Session for a few hours after we presented. However, during the second day of Conference, attendees are still talking about our presentation. I have had so many people approach me to inform me they learned more from us, four ONU students, than a session with a PR professional. I cannot express the pride and sense of accomplishment I felt when I heard students tell me this. 

After months of work and weeks of intense practicing, all of our hard work paid off. Even though I submitted our bid to present a CDS, I could not have pulled this off without the help of my fellow presenters. Without Bryan Mulvany, Evan Roberts and Natalyn Giverson, our CDS presentation would not have had the same impact and influence. I also want to thank the nine other wonderful ONU students who helped during the presentation, from handing out folders to judging to keeping me calm. 

The previous reasons are why ONU has an awesome PRSSA chapter - we know how to support our peers. As you will find in other ONU attendees' blogs, such as Madison Bender's, our chapter has a strong national presence. Even though we come from a village in the middle of corn fields, our chapter is known at national PRSSA events. I applaud my peers, as I know we will continue to "Rock the D" and show the other PRSSA chapters that even though we're small, we're not the underdog. We know what we're doing and we plan to be damn good.