“You Lead”, Aboriginal Students Attend one of Laurier’s premier Student Conferences

The Wilfrid Laurier leadership summit is a one-day leadership conference involving approximately 400 Laurier leaders from both the Waterloo and Brantford campus. The summit took place this past weekend on Saturday January 21^st with training starting at 9- 4:35pm.  Along with other Laurier campus clubs, the Aboriginal Student Centre and Aboriginal Students Association were represented by seven of its members including; Marie-Louise Larivière, Michelle Lewis, Tyler Logue, Kara Marchildon, Skaniehtiiohstha Montour, Paige Sillaby, and Rachel Simon. The dedicated members were given the option of attending four workshops, one of which included the Aboriginal Student Centre’s Aboriginal Student Support Coordinator Melissa Ireland, and Recruitment and Retention Officer Kandice Baptiste.

 “Overall, the Leadership summit was a great opportunity to built leaders at the Centre, but also giving the members a chance interact with each other and other clubs,” said Paige Sillaby, an ASA executive member.

The day’s workshop topics included everything from “Fine Tuning your potential”, an interactive workshop that focused on anticipating the unexpected, to “Got Sass? Snappy and engaging Techniques to Strengthen Teams”.

Guest lecturers were Laurier Graduate Cheryl Pounder and, Founder of Public Space Committee, David Meslin. Pounder was an outstanding Laurier women’s hockey player, who has since played six times on a Canada’s World Championship team, voted All-Star Defensemen and been awarded two Olympic Gold Medals. David Meslin is passionate about civic affairs and rallies volunteers to wage war against the commercialization of public space. His growing group is dedicated to hard work and making a difference in your own backyard. Through their own experiences the guest lectures were able to share and empower the delegates of the Laurier Leadership Summit.

For those who attended the Leadership Summit, a reminder that it can be added to you co-curricular record. Also, for those interested in attending the leadership summit in 2013 as a part of the Aboriginal Student Centre delegation, please contact Melissa for further information at mireland@wlu.ca.