Okay, so I just got back from the women leadership conference and I have to say I really enjoyed volunteering, I am so glad I did it. I was with the session about nonprofit boards. While I know ZERO about boards, being on a board or running one I feel like I learned a lot. The women on the panel all had very unique experiences with being on boards, public boards, profit focus boards, and those not for profit. I will admit I was very nervous about this, because I had no idea what I was supposed to be doing and I didn't want to look like an idiot in front of all of these strong women. I walked into the room where our session was being held, which happened to be our old classroom, and there were three women already there, two of the three panelists and the woman in charge of running the session. I took a minute to talk to them and asked them if they needed anything but all they needed help was passing out the literature that they brought with them and asked me to please join the session. I felt kind of silly because I put a pile of the handouts at every space in the room only to find that the approximately 10 women who had joined us in the room were everyone that would be attending this session. I took a seat out of the way but close enough to the cluster of attendees so that I could listen easily. When the session began and the speakers had introduced themselves they asked all of the attendees to say introduce themselves as well. As they went around the room I was surprised at how many of the attendees were from Otterbein, at least 50%, and it was interesting to hear each persons individual reasons for being in the session. When the woman who sat two seats away from me, as I left an open seat since I wasn't actually part of the group, everyone looked at me to introduce myself. I introduced myself and that I was a freshman here at Otterbein and that I was part of president Kredl's class and how I was only a volunteer, all of the women, particularly those on the panel, started talking at once telling me how I was more than a volunteer, that I should think more of myself, and how I was doing a very important thing. I am sure they said other things but with everyone talking at once it was really hard to understand everything. As the session progressed I figured out that one of the panelists and one of the attendees were involved with my old school district. The attendee was Melissa Conrath, who was the superintendent of Worthington schools. I was really excited to speak to her as soon at the session ended and as soon as I said "hi, my name is Katie Baldwin, and I recently graduated from Worthington Kilbourne" and as I went on to say more she interrupted me to say "weren't you at the academic signing this past spring?" I was so surprised that she remembered me, especially because on that very day when I was up on stage to speak and to sign my letter of acceptance the principal whom I had interacted with numerous times didn't know who I was and I had to repeatedly tell him my name as he kept trying to give me the papers with someone else was supposed to sign. It was rather embarrassing, I had to tell him three times no that isn't me, so when Melissa Conrath remembered me and knew who I was I was shocked. She then went on to tell me that she remembered me talking about going to Otterbein, she was so happy to see me here and that she would be coming to work here herself as she was stepping down as superintendent in Worthington. We went on to talk about how I was enjoying studying here and how my classes were. As we concluded our conversation she told me to keep in touch and she looked forward to seeing me again. I know that it was an insignificant conversation to her but just knowing that a woman who had seen me once, and whom I had never talked to before remembered me was a great way to end my day at the conference!
Okay so I saved this post to put up today before class and I totally forgot so here is my post from the past week! SORRY!
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