By: Tyler Tomooka
LDI is the next big event for FBLA. LDI stands for the Leadership Development Institute, and is taking place on November 16-17, designed to give young people leadership skills. Redwood travels to the North Section competition every year in Santa Clarita.
LDI is not a competition but rather an exercise giving students an opportunity to practice competitive events, gain leadership skills, attend workshops, and receive training from professionals of the business world. Along with lots of learning opportunities, this weekend gives friends and teammates the opportunities to bond and really get to know each other.
Mr. Avila, building on a decade of advising FBLA said, “It helps the students get the feel for what a conference is like without the stress of a competition and they have fun and get to see people like them from all over the state while getting to take practice tests so it helps with time management.”
Many students are planning on attending LDI because of the unique environment the conference puts them in. Jessica Shupe says “LDI is going to help me get leadership skills you can’t get anywhere else.”
Before the topic of LDI even came up, FBLA hosted a booth at Club Day the second week of school inviting people to eat Slushies and get the basic information of what the club stands for and does. The club had over 290 initial names sign up, then 249 kids at their first meeting, and most recently keeping the number high with 211 kids at their latest meeting.
The other big event is homecoming and Mr. Avila, director of FBLA commented on their homecoming float, saying “We’re doing a homecoming float but we don’t take it too seriously, we mostly try to have fun with it,” showing how fun this club can be.
So why are people so drawn to FBLA more than any other club on campus? “We allow a wide variety of people to get involved, you can be a freshmen through senior, an AP student or tech kid who doesn’t care about school, whatever it is, any walk of life Ranger can be involved,” says Avila.