DECA’s Fall Leadership Conference began the night of Oct. 28 in downtown Minneapolis at the Hyatt Regency, according to sophomore DECA member Rachel Stein.

“It started Sunday at 12:30 p.m. and ended Monday at 12 p.m. so we slept at the (downtown) Hyatt (regency),” Stein said.

According to DECA adviser Abigail Lugo, the conference united DECA members to teach them leadership skills and familiarize them with DECA as an organization.

“Fall Leadership Conference (FLC) is an opportunity for DECA members throughout Minnesota that come together to learn more about leadership opportunities,” Lugo said. “The main goal is always to get students more exposure into DECA and to just helped them on unleash their inner leader and to expose into more of what the organization is all about and how to step up.”

Stein said DECA state officers organized the conference.

“It was mostly controlled by the state officers, where these were just our chapter officers, but they did host meetings and get together packages and stuff that we needed to get at the beginning of the conference,” Stein said.

DECA communications officer, senior Maddie Hoffman said she enjoyed sharing DECA with new members.

“It’s been so amazing seeing new people experience DECA and what DECA’s about and get excited about competition,” Hoffman said. “I think that’s been the most rewarding part.”

Hoffman said there are two types of sessions. One is based on each member’s level of involvement in the organization. The other sessions members get to choose.

“At FLC, you’re put into groups based on how many years you’ve been in DECA. You go to those, and there are motivational speakers there, and you listen to them talk about how to communicate with others and how to create relationships in the professional world,” Hoffman said. “You also get to go to these breakout sessions that you get to choose to go to.”

Stein said the sessions were informative and helped her develop valuable skills for upcoming DECA competitions.

“The sessions were really informational and made you think about whether you really were putting your best effort forth and then also gave us some tools for preparing for competition,” Stein said.

According to Lugo, this year they had many students participate in going to the fall leadership conference.

“I think so for Park I know this is one of our higher attendance in terms of how many students we brought which makes me really excited,” Lugo said.

Lugo said the number of students that were going to the fall leadership conference was originally 48 but 45 students went instead.

“We had 48 students signed up to go, and I believe with last-minute absences we had about 45 students in downtown with us,” Lugo said.