After all the schools have arrived, the students will move into the auditorium, where the S.E.M.A.S.C. Executive Board, led by President Josh Dyer, and Walpole Student Council’s own executive board will officially begin the conference.  The main speaker for this year will be Shonda Schilling, who will be speaking to the high school students about her involvement in the Best Buddies program and her book “The Best Kind of Different”: her story about the family’s journey with the Asperger’s Syndrome.

   After listening to Schilling speak, students will attend a large workshop—sessions aimed towards teaching the teenagers about how to be better leaders.  Matt Brown, a Norwood hockey player who was paralyzed due to an injury during a game in 2010, will be leading one of the large workshops to speak about his journey and never giving up.  Along with Brown, some of Walpole’s teachers—Mr. Ferro, Mr. St. Martin, Mr. Geary, and others—and some of Walpole StuCo’s own members—juniors Matt Brownsword and Jack Stedman and sophomores Kody McCann, Annie Gallivan, and Mary Hinton and freshman Dillon Knight—will be leading large workshops.

   Later in the day, students will attend smaller, more personal workshops led by members of various student councils in attendance.  The students have created and prepared their own workshops, which—similar to the large workshops—are all focused mainly on how to become better leaders and how to work well as a group.

 In addition to learning about leadership, attendees will also be voting for a S.E.M.A.S.C. president-elect at the conference.  The S.E.M.A.S.C. executive board has decided to vote for a president elect in the fall in order to provide him or her with a year of shadowing the current president and learning how to do the job: allowing them the best opportunity for success in their following year as president.

   S.E.M.A.S.C. Conferences are aimed at bringing together student leaders from the eastern portion of the state in order to educate them about ways to be more effective leaders.  Waldron said, “Even with our crazy schedules, everyone sacrificed time to make this conference a success and regardless of the outcome we should be proud of the work we’ve done.”  Despite the pressure that comes along with being selected to host such a large event, the Walpole High School Student Council’s main goal is that each student that comes will leave having learned something new that they can use to benefit their own councils.