As the buses loaded on an early Thursday morning on November 9th, Goffstown High School’s Student Council was headed up north for a conference to discuss communication and increasing motivation. With a night’s clothes in hand and snacks to entertain, the students chatted the whole hour to their destination. As they drove farther and farther into the woods and the weather slowly became more winter-like, the group arrived at Waterville Valley Conference Center. From the outside its grand ski lodge build made the group jittery and excited to be spending the night. As the group was given their room numbers and time to drop their things off, they headed to the conference room to start their day of fun.

Student Council is an organization that “gives students an opportunity to develop leadership skills through school wide activities and volunteer opportunities”, says Senior Kyla Pothier, the president of the executive board. StuCo (Student Council) is more than just a club they are the students that organize all the big events at our school! Everything from HOCO to spirit weeks, they help plan it all. Which includes their building of leadership skills.

As Goffstown’s StuCo joins the other schools in the lodge they have a packed schedule with ice breakers and a speaker, Ted Wiese, before lunch. Panel meetings and workshop times, with a semi-formal dinner and karaoke and movies to end the night. “I had a lot of fun,” Kyla states, “it’s always good to meet new people and listen to strong speakers.”

  Field trips like these are important to go on so you get to learn from other schools and how they run things at their school and how to involve communities. The interactions from other schools bring friendships as well.

The student’s ended the night with a formal dinner and plenty of off time to watch movies and karaoke! “I think that was my favorite part,” Kyla says, “just time to relax and hang out with friends.” 

Since this field trip was a two-day excursion the next morning they jumped right back into activities. With another group talk with Ted Wiese, more group activities, and district meetings and conferences. Goffstown’s StuCo fully embraced the trip’s learning opportunities and meeting new people. “Some of the main takeaways from this trip were better ways of communicating and how to increase motivation…” and a few other ways to get the spirit up at GHS.