Olivia Velazquez: Leadership Opportunities in Student Clubs

Olivia Velazquez
Alt Text:  Smiling woman
with short hair and bright orange scarf

SMAS 2018-2019 Student Council gave an outstanding presentation at the CCAE 2019 Bay Section Conference. The title of their presentation was "Expanding Leadership Opportunities for Students."   Here is Olivia Velazquez's section about student clubs.

Hello Everyone, my name is Olivia Velazquez and I am a student at San Mateo Adult School and the evening student council Vice President.

Today I will talk with you about how school clubs provide leadership opportunities for students.

What is leadership?

Leadership is when a person creates ideas for others to motivate them to do a good job.

Every project needs to have a leader that will lead the group.

This leader needs to listen to other people’s ideas, have a vision and share it with others.

This creates a democracy in which all the people in the project have a input.

School Clubs provide students great opportunities to develop leadership skills, like Vision, Motivation, Service, Empathy, Creativity, Management and Team building.  

Slide from Presentation
Green Team Flyer - Chess Club - Garden Club

Clubs focus on a specific vision.

This vision is then shared with others to help them get inspired to work towards a common goal.

A good example of this would be the Green Team club at San Mateo Adult School.

The Green Team club was established to help make our school campus more environmentally-friendly by composting at class parties, teaching students and staff how to save energy and use less plastic, learning about climate change, and more.

Leaders of a club need to motivate the club members and get them excited to do their best to achieve the common goal.

They need to make club members feel supported and appreciated.

Club leaders need to have emotional intelligence and put themselves in the place of others to understand their concerns and help them solve problems.

Good leaders need to create an environment in which the club members feel inspired to create new and better ideas.

They need to guide and manage the club always reaching for the common goal.

And, good leaders make the club members feel like part of the team.

Student club leadership is necessary to help clubs distribute the tools and growth strategies for they require to function and influence others to join.

San Mateo Adult School clubs that offer leadership opportunities include the Chess Club, the Garden club, and the Green Team Club.

Now let me introduce Simone Coelho who will talk about leadership in Community Volunteering.