The KEY to Leadership
by Avni Hulyalkar
Throughout the month of August, Los Gatos Key Club worked hard on a new event: The KEY to Leadership! Despite the cheesy name, with this Zoom-based webinar we hoped to build new, confident leaders in our community.
The Key to Leadership was targeted towards elementary schoolers, both current K-Kids and prospective new members. The event was composed of 6 presentations about various topics which are essential for strong leaders to understand. To name a few, we covered teamwork, making and seizing opportunities, emotional intelligence, and communication. Furthermore, the webinar had some special guest speakers, who talked about the different branches and connectivity in Kiwanis.
Also, we gave the kids a chance to brainstorm ideas of their own with a Leadership Challenge. After splitting into breakout rooms, officers encouraged the attendees to think about problems they saw in our community. Then, using their new leadership skills, the kids worked to plan a service event that could tackle one of these problems.
We were pleasantly surprised by the depth and creativity of what they came up with! Ideas included assisting those relocated because of the fires, and a two-step plan to help marine life. In fact, LG Key Club hopes to turn some of these ideas into actual service events in the near future.
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Our members worked hard to find the perfect balance between entertainment and education to ensure the kids would be engaged and hopefully take some valuable lessons away.
As another way to sustain attention, we introduced a bit of a twist to the webinar: the theme of Disney movies. Each board member that presented pretended to be (by changing their Zoom backgrounds) a unique Disney character. With this fun addition, these presentations came from leadership enthusiasts like Olaf and Winnie the Pooh.
Also, at the end of the webinar, there was a fun Kahoot about the presentation contents, designed to cement these important ideas in the kids' brains in an exciting way. Our members worked hard to find the perfect balance between entertainment and education to ensure the kids would be engaged and hopefully take some valuable lessons away.
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In addition to building leaders, with the webinar, LG Key Club aimed to deepen ties with the other clubs of the Kiwanis family. After all, these elementary schoolers are potential Key Clubbers in the making. We aspired to show them what their high school years could look like!
Looking forward, the Key to Leadership does not have to be a one time thing. If the demand is there, our club will plan to host another webinar for Builder’s Club members, or even reach out to younger clubs outside our community. The more leaders in our midst, the better!