Friday morning was the final session for the conference. This session was essentially a presentation from Sam 'the Chalk Man' Glenn. Sam is a motivational speaker with a humorous and universal message about giving your best everyday and seeing the humor in adversity. You can see a demo of his work here.
Besides the seminars, working sessions, and motivational speeches, conferences like this are good for a few other things. First, there was a Vendor Expo where we had over 100 companies available to answer questions and demonstrate some of the services they offered. Secondly, since this was a PSBA conference, I was surrounded by other school board members at all times. I will talk a bit in detail about these other aspects of the conference.
In my full-time position I have been fortunate to attend expos much like the one at the Hershey Lodge. Before going to the expo I made sure to identify 10 vendors that I HAD to see. These were companies that I thought the District might benefit from talking to or vendors that we already do business with. The rest of the time I wanted to have the opportunity to let something catch my eye. Chevron had a booth there. Now, one might start to wonder why the heck Chevron would be at an event like this. I know I did. It turns out they have an energy consulting division that has a written guarantee of 30% energy savings if you go with one of their energy solutions. I talked with the sales guy for 15-20 minutes and came away with some good ideas. I talked to two different roofing companies. They both sell and install materials that can be laid on top of existing roofs that would be far less expensive than a full roof replacement. These materials can be guaranteed for up to 15 years. That sort of product might come in handy some day. I talked with a company that makes a boiler system that runs on alternative fuels like switchgrass patties. These patties pack more energy in them than do traditional energy sources and run about 30% less in cost than typical energy sources. There were obviously a number of other vendors I spoke with but I won't bore you with the details.
The other beneficial part of this conference is the constant interaction with other school board members across the state. You can learn a lot by watching. No matter how well we think our board might operate, there are ways to improve. It was great to be able to sit next to a past president of the PSBA and pick her brain for a while. There were people here with far more experience than I and I made sure to use the opportunity to learn everything I could from their experiences.
All in all I hope to share much of the information I gained from this conference with the rest of the Board over time and I will encourage each of them to try to attend next year. It was well worth the time.
Thanks for reading.
James
