Matt Gray (Section Director): February 2009 Archives

I hope you're as excited about tomorrow's conference as we are!  I just wanted to remind you of a couple things for tomorrow...

First, advisers: Please report to Room 540 at 8:15 for the adviser morning briefing. 

- Test tickets: When your chapter checks in you'll receive an index card for each competitor.  It's vital that you pass these out to the students as soon as you check-in the morning.  This index card has the schedule for that competitor's events, where those rooms are located, their ID, and if they are testing in the gym it has the exact seat number that they are assigned.

- ID: Please remind your members to bring their school, photo-ID.  No one will be allowed to compete without their ID.  We will not accept faxes on the day of the event.

- Pencils:  We have a small set of extra pencils, so please encourage your members to bring their own no. 2 pencils for written events. 

- Dress code:  Every year we unfortunately need to "DQ" (disqualify) competitors because they are violating the dress code.  Click here for the CA FBLA dress code.  Some of the most common violations include males wearing white socks (non-dress socks) and females not wearing nylons when wearing skirts or dresses.

- Check-in tomorrow morning begins at 7:00 AM in Room 530.  Please have all your members seated inside the gym by 8:00 AM for the start of the Opening Session. 

- Has your chapter sent in its Voting Delegates? See this GoldCoastFBLA.org entry for more information.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact me directly.  We'll be busy working on the conference (on the road) all day, but we''ll try to be as available as possible. 
Check GoldCoastFBLA.org for any last minute updates!

Advisers:

We just emailed your chapter's key contacts a snapshot of what the registration looks like in our system.  We're about to make the test rosters, name tags, and all the other documents that need to be ready for next week and we want to make sure everything is accurate.

The document also outlines which sessions your members are currently scheduled to compete.  As you know, we had to do some adjusting to chapter schedules to prevent any "conflicts." We also needed to maintain an even balance between sessions I and II (especially important in judged events).  We aim to prevent it, but some minor problems may arise. With this in mind, please review this document for accuracy.    

With your help now, the check-in process will go smoothly on the morning of the event.
Besides correction of errors on our end, no changes are allowed at this point.

Thank you to everyone who submitted materials to compete in the Job Interview competition.  Because we had more than ten competitors, the preliminary round was used to select the ten finalists.

The following ten Job Interview finalists will move onto the judging round at the 2009 Gold Coast Section Leadership Conference:

(in alphabetical order by school)

• Clarissa Wei, Arcadia High School

• Lavanya Jawaharlal, Diamond Bar High School'

• Crystal Sitt, Gabrielino High School

• Janet Lee, Mark Keppel High School

• Neil Paik, Moorpark High School

• Jasmin Perez, Moorpark High School

• Debbie Truong, Rosemead High School

• Gretel Corsa, Santa Maria High School

• Ivan Trang, South El Monte High School

• Charlene Lee, Walnut High School

As many of you know, this is FBLA Week!  And today (Wednesday) is a very special day... Adviser Appreciation Day! 

On behalf of the Gold Coast Section Officer Team and myself, thank you to all the chapter advisers of Gold Coast.  Without you, FBLA would not be possible.  Thank you for all your hard work, dedication, and positive spirit!

Online registration for the 2009 State Leadership Conference opened on February 1.  You can access the SLC Online Conference Registration by visiting www.cafbla.org. 

 

February 13 is an important deadline.  Remember:

 
    1.     There are 11 pre-judged competitive events that must be postmarked by February 13.   They are:

 Business Ethics

 Business Financial Plan

 Business Plan

 Business Presentation

 E-business

 Electronic Career Portfolio

 Emerging Business Issues

 Digital Video Production

 Desktop Application Programming

 Internet Application Programming

 Website Development

 

2.  Any student entered in one of the above pre-judged competitive events having a February 13 postmarked deadline must have membership dues paid prior to February 13.  Please make sure you allow for time to post your dues payment if you are mailing a check to the national office rather than paying for dues online with your credit card.  Also, if you have already paid your students' dues, check to make sure they are listed as paid.

 

And

 

3. Online Conference Registration for a student entered in one of the 11 pre-judged competitive events must be completed by February 13.

 

Online registration instructions begin on page 13 of your 2009 SLC program.

(And don't forget, the last day you can make changes to SECTION registration is also February 13)

Thank you to the many chapters who have already registered and submitted their checks for the Gold Coast Section Leadership Conference! 

There have been a couple questions regarding deadlines...

The February 6th deadline is for all online conference registration for anyone who does NOT want to pay late fees. Online registrations are allowed after February 6th (with the late fee), but not after February 13th when the system will be turned off.

The February 10th deadline is for all conference materials for pre-judged events like Job Interview.  Per the conference checklist, these materials should be sent to me (Matt Gray).  Refer to that document for the address and additional materials (ie transcripts) required to sent in to me.

We're printing name tags, test tickets, and test rosters the weekend of February 14.  No changes, substitutions, or additions will be allowed after the February 13th deadline. 

And lastly... please make sure ALL your competitors in a given competition (ie Business Math) are taking the test at the same time.  Your chapter is responsible for identifying any conflicts.  If any of your members taking the same test take the test in two different sessions, all your members in that competition will be disqualified.   With that said, if you've created spreadsheet diagraming which sessions you want your members to test and illustrates how there are no conflicts in your registration, please email that to me at goldcoastdirector@cafbla.org as soon as possible. 

We're excited for an awesome conference! More updates soon.  -Matt Gray

The Gold Coast Section takes almost 100 volunteers to run smoothly.  If you have any adult guests that are willing to help, please email me as soon as possible. 

We're also looking for some fascinating workshop presenters. If you have anyone that you'd recommend, email me at goldcoastdirector@cafbla.org.

All chapters advisers will be assigned a proctor position in the main-group testing session. We'll be contacting you with your assignment shortly after all registration is in (regular registration closes 2/6 and late-fee registration ends 2/13).