Four Centre Wellington District High School (CWDHS) students are Nashville-bound to compete in an international business competition.
Sydney Welch, Morgan Alman, Adia Meyer and Kayla MacMillan, all Grade 12 students, beat out the competition at the provincial DECA competition in Toronto in February to earn their spot at the international competition this month in Nashville.
The high school seniors are all part of the CWDHS’s DECA business club, whose members work on an oral or written business challenge throughout the year.
Alman, Meyer and MacMillan, who took the written route, were required to come up with a fundraising event that would be judged and scrutinized at the provincial competition.
In December the group put on the “Souper Bowl” at CWDHS where 33 teachers made soup or chili that was then sold to staff and students for $5. More than $1,000 was raised and split 50/50 between the Muscular Dystrophy Association of Canada and pediatric brain cancer research.
“It had a personal aspect that there were students in our school that were actually battling these things we were raising money for and that we were including the community, not just our school,” Meyer said.
Once the event was complete the students put together a 30-page report about the Souper Bowl and gave a presentation to the judge at the provincial competition.
“We thought it went well,” Meyer said. “We didn’t think it went well enough to actually put us over the edge of other schools based on what we saw last year, so it was a very pleasant surprise to find out that it did.”
Alman said she thought it was the unique idea and theme that set the group apart from the other competitors.
“I think part of it is that our idea was so creative and different from what everybody else did,” she said.
“We’ve seen the other groups just at training events sanctioned by the DECA association and they all have great ideas but ours is very different from everybody else’s.”
The group took the top spot in the provincial competition with a score of 98% overall.
Welch, meanwhile, took a different route to the international competition.
Taking on the challenge individually and in the oral competition, she competed in the quick-serve restaurant management category.
“I chose my category because I work at McDonald’s and I have for a couple years now … so I’m a team leader there right now so that’s kind of why I chose my category, because I figured it wouldn’t be one of the bigger ones but I would still know a lot about it,” said Welch.
To prepare Welch used personal time because DECA is an extracurricular activity.
“I did a lot of practice exams and case studies so I would come in at lunch here and I’d do a case and just present to the business teachers and then I did practice exams on my own time,” she explained.
At the provincial competition Welch was required to complete a 100-question multiple choice exam and analyze and present two case studies to a judge.
“One of my cases was for a pizza company and they wanted to start doing online ordering through Twitter so I had to explain to the judge what the drawbacks, what the benefits are, what we would have to do for extra training, who our target market was and stuff like that.”
The Grade 12 student placed sixth in her category securing her place at this month’s international competition.
The four CWDHS students are part of the 6.6 per cent of approximately 7,000 Ontario DECA provincial competitors who are going on to nationals.
This is the high school’s third time sending students to the competition in the U.S. In 2013 MacMillan went to California when she was in Grade 9 and in 2015 MacMillan and Meyer went as a team to the competition in Florida.
This is the school’s first time sending two teams, which will be sponsored in part by a $1,000 donation from the Elora Lions Club.
“I’m so proud of them,” said DECA club teacher advisor Brenda Pettifer. “They’ve done so well and they worked so hard.
“As you can see from speaking to all of them, they’re just so put together and professional, all of those things, so it’s going to be fun. We’re going to have fun in Nashville.”
However, the trip from April 21 to 28 will have a business focus.
“The first couple days are training and then we’ll have a couple days of the competitions … we won’t be competing every day,” MacMillan said.
“There’s the first round of competitions that happens and then there’s what they call a mini-awards ceremony and so if you make it into the top ten I think for the mini awards then you compete again for a second time, so we would do the same presentation and Sydney would do a different case study and then there’s a grand awards where they announce the top.”
The four CWDHS students are among the elite of business club students.
“It’s such stiff competition,” Pettifer explained. “Like it’s really, really hard to even make it to internationals.
“Once you’re there it’s quite the spectacle. So everybody’s chanting, ‘Ontario’ … it’s like this whole thing that you can’t quite imagine and everyone dislikes Ontario because we always win the most.”
Meyer and MacMillan said the other students are “fascinated” by Canadian students.
“They ask us questions about, ‘does it always snow, like do you see moose everywhere?’” Meyer said.
“And do you drive dogsleds, all these things,” MacMillan added.
It’s all four of the students’ first time to Nashville and they’re excited for a trip they’ve planned to the Grand Ole Opry.
“We’re going to try to get Nashville Predators tickets if they are in the playoffs and if they’re playing at home,” Alman added.
The DECA club began in 2010, Pettifer explained.
“We kind of started it initially as a way of hoping to get people to take business because it’s an optional course, it’s always hard, you want to keep your numbers up,” she said.
“I think it’s just a good option not all kids want to do necessarily a Sports team or some of the other clubs, so I think it’s just a good option for academic kids who want to do something a little bit different.”
The club had between 35 and 40 students this year and approximately 25 made it to provincials. Pettifer said that as word spread about the travelling involved with the club, more students expressed interest in becoming members.
The four DECA members going to internationals are all graduating from high school this year.
Both Welch and Alman are likely heading to Wilfrid Laurier University for business, MacMillan is going into medical science but has yet to pick a school, and Meyer is taking the year off but is considering law, business or psychology.
