Hello and welcome to the first official blog of SLP Session 2! Katie, James, and I have been so excited to meet the participants and kick off this session and it couldn’t have gone better.

To kick off the day right, participants were served breakfast from Black and Brew while they began to meet each other. It was very cool to hear conversations pick up more and more as they got settled in.

What better way to start SLP than to hear a message from Mayor Bill Mutz! His talk was focused on how to be a respected individual wherever you go. I loved this because the skills he talked about can be implemented to life in so many different ways.

After Mayor Mutz, we introduced Randall LaBranch and Amanda Kenny from Team Training Unlimited. To begin, Randall and Amanda took our group through a ton of different exercises focused on team building, networking, culture shock, and other leadership skills.

 

Randalls main activity was a rocket launch! Participants were put into groups and had to build a rocket, market the rocket, and have a successful launch without cracking the egg they had to protect. It was very cool to watch the participants delegate work and be able to create a rockets in the short amount of time they were given.

 

 

Following a fun launch we had lunch from Pinoy Cravings from right here at Catapult. I had a fantastic beef sandwich.

Next on Randals list was a Downtown Lakeland scavenger hunt. The group was given new teams and had to do different things in Downtown Lakeland.

 

After the scavenger hunt we served ice cream to help participants cool off from a very hot day. During this time we also celebrated participant Emma Petcoffs birthday!

We then welcomed Natalie Jones, a Human Resources Professional at Publix. Mrs. Jones walked through how to build your personal brand and we did so through vision boards. She spoke on the value of not just having goals but making sure you visualize your goals. I thought it was interesting how she said more people accomplish their goals when they write them down and see them.

As we wrapped up the vision boards we had a brief overview of the day and then set off for our official social at The Joinery.

Thank you so much for reading!

  • Carter Sandman (SLP Intern)