February 24 to 26, Lambert’s Compass Ambassadors attended the 2017 Georgia Association of Student Councils. After months of planning, organizing, and preparing, the weekend they had been waiting for finally arrived. This year’s GASC convention was commenced at the 4-H Rock Eagle Center in Eatonton, Georgia.

The Georgia Association of Student Councils, or GASC, is an “organization dedicated to the development of student leaders and student council throughout the state of Georgia.” Students from five districts in Georgia attend GASC to acquire valuable skills such as leadership development, managing service projects, how to build school spirit, how to plan events successfully, and how to develop local leaders. The goal of GASC is to “provide a place for student leaders and advisors to grow and learn from each other through sharing and leadership training to make all Georgia councils and schools they best they can be.”

The theme for this year’s event was “It’s a Small World” with the focus on different cultures throughout the world. Every student was working towards receiving their “Passport to leadership.” There were many diverse students with different backgrounds at GASC with the desire to become better leaders. This year served as a comeback year for the Lambert Longhorns, as they did not receive the position they were hoping for in the 2016 school year. Lambert campaigned for the position of Journal School, a leadership platform that upholds GASC’s social media, website, gazette, videos, and pictures. Other leadership positions schools are able to run for include President, Vice President, Secretary, Journal, Parliamentarian, and Middle School Member-at-Large.  Star Wars: Lambert Strikes Back was the premise of the Compass Ambassador’s campaign. Each school running for office was expected to perform a skit, deliver speeches, and campaign until voting on Saturday evening.

To get their campaign started, each student attending participated in the skit, made light saber key chains, and created posters to promote Longhorn pride. On Friday night, the Longhorns presented their skit along with all the other high schools campaigning. Other performances included the themes of Disney, Harry Potter, and Inside Out.

Saturday was filled with workshops, campaigning, voting, and dancing. Everybody attended three workshops that encouraged stepping outside of comfort zones. There were also three motivational speakers that shared their stories that have shaped them into leaders.

Voting began promptly at 4:30 p.m. on Saturday. Each school had a representative that stood up in the auditorium to vote for the office of President. All other schools ran unopposed for the positions of Vice President School, Secretary School, Journal School, Parliamentarian, and Middle School Member-at-Large. In the end, it was Meadowcreek High School that won presidency for the GASC 2017-2018 year.

The Sunday morning meeting acted as an initiation ceremony for the 2017-2018 Executive Board. Lambert junior, Abbey Darwin, and Lambert sophomore, Colton Johnson, are now serving as representatives for Journal School on the Executive Board of GASC. Johnson, speaks highly of Lambert’s Campaign, “Our campaign was to represent the Georgia Association of Student Councils as journal school – which involves working on the GASC website, social media, gazette, and convention videos.”

Darwin speaks of how the Longhorns chose to run for Journal school. “We wanted to become more involve with GASC. We began by choosing a campaign and a theme so we could run for the position of Journal School. We chose this position because we felt that there were many students in Compass that could help us and had the skills to make a website, run social media, and take pictures. Our campaign theme was Star Wars; it was a fun theme to plan. In order to run for a position, you have to make a skit. This was probably the most difficult part in our campaign, because commitment was hard for everyone. After we were organized, and actually arrived at convention and began campaigning, we realized how fun it was to branch out and talk to others from different schools. We are now officially the GASC Journal School. Colton and I have the privilege of being on Executive Board, which means we are able to go to the board meetings and help plan the GASC year ahead. We also have to communicate between the board and schools, which is a really cool opportunity for Lambert Compass as a whole.”