The following student report was submitted by Ambassador League Agent Joshua E. during the 2007-2008 League.
AM LEAGUE PROMOTE SSI SUMMER PROGRAM REPORT
I was glad for the opportunity to promote the SSI Summer program this past week. I consider SSI to be one of the most building experiences of my life and hope that as many teens as possible are able to experience it on the level that I have, possibly even continuing to the level of participating in the Ambassador League.
In preparing for this event, I planned on doing it at either my home school co-op where I take extracurricular classes or at my church youth group. I elected for the youth group in order to reach more kids and increase the chances for enrollment. I discussed doing a video-ad with my youth pastor, and he said that I could do it as soon as I had my materials together. I promptly contacted SSI and requested about 75 brochures which I received that week, and downloaded the video off of the SSI website onto my flash drive. I planned to do the advertisement on May 18th, but ended up postponing it because I came down with a severe cold the day before. We had to postpone it another week because we had planned a family camping trip on May 25th.
On June 2nd, I arrived to my church several minutes early in order to discuss the presentation with my youth pastor and check the video equipment. This completed, he told me that we would show the video at the end of the service and that I would make a quick announcement afterwards.
The video presentation went well; the SSI staff did a nice job putting it together, and I felt that the nature of the program came across pretty succinctly. I think that for future videos, it would help if the video discussed what the kids actually did in the program in addition to the testimonials. Aside from that, the presentation went well and was well-received. I spoke afterwards, detailing a little bit of what kids do in the program, when the program was running this summer, and what skills the SSI experience would add to students looking into business or political fields. After the service ended, I talked to a teen I know from a debate club and asked him to advertise SSI to his group (hopefully that will yield some results!).
Overall, I felt that the advertisement came off well. My only concern was my own speech at the end of the video. It is true that if you fail to prepare, you prepare to fail. I was able to get across most of the points I wished to make, but it would have been a good idea to take up a piece of paper with bullet points to make sure I remembered all of the things I wanted to say. I now realize that ad-libbing, though desirable as an ultimate goal, is not usually a good strategy, and I should have swallowed my pride and put my thoughts in order ahead of time.
Aside from this assignment, I regularly encourage my friends to pursue SSI even if they do not enjoy civics. I believe that even if they do not make a career out of political activism, SSI will benefit them, regardless of interests or career field. The experience extends beyond the borders of politics to show us that we are all ambassadors for Christ and represent him wherever we go. I have tried to take this message to heart and hope that other high-school students will do the same.
