Great West Relay For Life Youth Summit

This year, I have been privileged to be a part of the Great West Relay For Life Youth Task Force (YTF). The YTF is a group of seventeen high school and college students who work with three American Cancer Society (ACS) staff members. Members come from all over the twelve most Western states in the US, excluding California. We had two official meetings in Seattle, attended the National Collegiate Leadership Summit in Dallas and the Great West Leadership Summit in Reno, and were in touch constantly via conference call and email. We worked on a variety of projects and programs throughout the year, which were distributed and rolled at at our Summit this past weekend. My primary project was designing a Youth Pacesetter with two other members. The program sets a timeline for the events/deadlines essential to planning Relay, challenging all Youth Relays to stay on track and to meet and exceed expectations. The year has been stressful at times, but ultimately incredible. I have learned so much from my fellow YTF members because we all come from such different backgrounds and have had diverse experiences. It has been amazing to work with sixteen of the best leaders in the Great West Division!

Summit Video Filming in Dallas

Our work culminated at Youth Summit this past weekend. I arrived in Seattle on Wednesday, after finishing my final paper, making over 300 copies at our local ACS office, haphazardly packing, and driving to DIA. Caitlin and I arrived close to midnight and completely crashed. I had been back in Colorado for less than three days before leaving, so I was tired! On Thursday, we helped Kelly, our YTF chair, and Nicole, our staff lead, organize, prepare, and finalize the last minute details. The rest of the group arrived throughout the afternoon and evening and we went straight to work. I have become a pro at preparing presentations in short periods of time - I can whip out a PowerPoint presentation in under twenty minutes and outline a verbal presentation in even less than that.

Summit participants attended one workshop for their position on their Relay committee (ex. Event Chair, Team Development Chair) and four breakouts on more detailed topics (ex. Team Recruitment, Fundraising Development, Survivorship Development). In between the breakouts/workshop and meals, all 300+ high school, college, and ACS staff participants got together for General Sessions. Everyone arrived for dinner on Friday while the YTF frantically decorated the general session ballroom, presentation rooms, prepared presentations, tracked down lost packages, etc. On Saturday, Summit officially started with our opening general session. Our keynote speakers were Dr. Gordy Klatt, founder of Relay, and Pat Flynn, "mother of Relay." We were fortunate enough to have Pat speak at the Colorado College Relay this past spring, and it was very exciting to see the two creators of Relay at our Summit.

Our theme for Summit was "spy," as exemplified by our introductory video. We decorated in line with the theme and all of our general sessions featured skits with "famous spies." Participants were fingerprinted and greeted by secret agents at registration too! On Sunday, we had a real FBI agent speak during one of the general sessions. The theme was very fun to work with and we all enjoyed running around in black and sunglasses!

I taught a workshop with my buddy Jason for Event Chairs and Co-Chairs that went incredibly well! We were a little nervous because neither of us had time to practice, but the two hours flew by and at the expense of bragging, people were talking about it all weekend! I taught Team Recruitment with another YTFer, Walter, twice, following the workshops on Saturday. That one was a little rougher because Walter and I do not complement each other quite as well, but it still turned out great. We held a "casino night" with dessert, a DJ, and professional casino games for the Saturday night participant activity. The YTF, of course, stayed up until the early hours of the morning each night working on the next day.

On Sunday, our closing speaker was Jeff Ross, the most inspirational speaker from the ACS headquarters, and in our opinion, the world! It was a fantastic end to a wonderful summit! Our wrap up party was very difficult because we have all become such great friends over the year! We are definitely planning a YTF 2007 reunion in the future because some of us are graduating or will not be able to be on the YTF next year for one reason or another.

Caitlin and I flew into DIA and returned to CC at 2:30 am on Monday. Block 3 began at 9:00 am. I am in Environmental Management and love it thus far! In fact, I actually need to go to class right now, so more later!

The Group Modeling our "No Cancer" SWAT -style vests

Boston Field Trip

I am in the home stretch of my Block Two course: Economics of Innovation. I have been studying the economics of technological change, policy implications, the history of innovation, in addition to current trends in innovation on both a micro and macro level. As if the Block Plan was not challenging enough, we cut our class time from three and a half weeks down to just two weeks. I am not sure exactly how much work I did for the first two weeks of the course, but it was upwards of four or five hours a night. However, we were rewarded for our efforts! Last week, my class spent Monday though Saturday in Boston observing the climate of an innovation epicenter at its finest.

The Boston Courthouse

I do not even know how I can re-cap last week. It was so incredibly busy! We got to Boston around 5:00 am on Tuesday morning (yay red eye flights) and had our first meeting at 11:00 am, which gave us approximately three hours of sleep because it took forever to check into our hotel. We met so many interesting people between Tuesday and Friday! We went all over Boston via the T and also walked a ton! I really think that we saw every inch of the city. We spent a lot of time at MIT and Harvard, touring labs and meeting with researchers and professors.

Harvard Medical Campus

Sunset on the Charles River

The MIT Technology Museum was incredible. It featured a sample of MIT's cutting edge technologies such as fold-up electric city cars. We also saw the robotics lab and the tactile technology lab, which had some "smart kids toys" that are so technologically advanced they could be used for about eight million other things. We visited the Harvard Med and Business schools, met with a bunch of start up entrepreneurs, venture capital companies, and finance people. We also checked out historical sites like the courthouse where the Boston Massacre took place and Samuel Adams' grave.

The Charles River with MIT in the Background

On Thursday, we checked out South Boston. We visited the Federal Reserve, saw the site of the Boston Tea Party, and were warned not to venture further south than the T station. We also went down to the water for some high-quality Boston seafood. I had a salad and educated my peers on the unsustainable nature of large fishing operations.

True Boston Weather, aka the Disappearing Fed

We left the hotel before 8:00 am every morning and never returned before midnight. I had dinner with Bridge on Tuesday and Friday, but had class dinners with guests on the other nights. We did not sleep at all, but it was worth it! I was sort of at a disadvantage because I had just returned from CA/have not slept for two months, but I can crash over Thanksgiving break.

Chinatown Adventure with Bridgett Last Tuesday Night

On Saturday I made Bridgett come with me to the Boston Vegetarian Expo! Saturday was a "free day," so Bridge and I hung out all day. I found out about the festival thing from a veg magazine that I read on the plane from CA and it magically happened to be while I was in Boston. It was amazing - dozens of vendors and organizations with information and food samples. Bridgett even had fun! It was insanely crowded, but totally worth it. It was so cool to be in a room where everyone was like me!

Before the Boston Veg Expo, I went to visit/meet up with Bridge at BC. Her campus is gorgeous! It is about a half hour outside of Boston, easily accessible on the T. We took a super quick tour, saw her dorm room (roommates were sleeping, even though it was 10:30 am), etc.

Fall at Boston College

Then, we went back into downtown Boston to meet up with my friend Meghan Behnke, who goes to BU. We all had brunch together, which was fun because I have not seen her for almost two years. After that, Bridge and I went to the veg festival. Then, we decided to go shopping - Bridgett's reward for "hanging out with a bunch of hippies." That was pretty fun. We went to the North End, which is the Italian district because Bridgett had to see that. My class went there for dinner on Wednesday and it is super cute. I had some excellent sorbet and Bridge tried Cannoli. We found an incredible farmer's market on the way back! It was incredibly cheap! I had to exercise serious self-control to keep myself from buying tons of fruits and veggies that I could not take back to CO. I have no idea where this stuff came from, but there were mangoes bigger than my head (no joke) and enormous carrots, among other gargantuan veggies/fruits. Bridgett and I got everything cheaper than posted, or free in the case of the massive carrot, because the guys selling the produce liked us...haha.

The Giant Carrot

It was one crazy trip! We returned to CC around 2:30 am on Sunday morning. I presented an argument on the reasons why small firms are the future of US innovation to my classmates and community businesses executives this morning. Now I am working on the accompanying ten page paper. The paper plus packing and preparing handouts, power points, etc. for the Great West Relay For Life Youth Task Force Summit (leaving tomorrow) should keep me busy for the remainder of the day.

Fall in Boston