Challenges Individuals in a One-year Leadership Position are Facing During the Pandemic

My empathy goes to those leaders currently serving in an annual term, leadership group. Your team has had to adapt in order to stay connected with your members. While you may be upset that your year of service wasn’t like your predecessors’, you should be proud that it is nothing less.

Those who served before you had a very different experience, and have grown and developed differently from those experiences. However, you have grown as well. You have learned to adapt to change, form connections in different ways, and be a leader through different methods.

For those whose term ended or is near ending, you have left a different legacy. Those just beginning a term are continuing that legacy. It’s not how we expected or wanted to start; however, this isn’t an impossible challenge.

Don’t be afraid to fly with the wind.

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This past year (2020 - 2021), I served as National Professional Agriculture Student (PAS) Organization Vice President of Industry Relations. Throughout the year I was able to help with providing video content for marketing and social media, interviewing organization partners and sponsors, recruiting new chapters, and more. However, not once was the Board of Directors or Officer Team able to connect in-person. With the lack of positive energy from in-person events and being “Zoom”ed out every month, you could say that it made our year of service more difficult.

Even through the difficult times, resilience prevailed.

As an organization, we were able to organize our National Conference in a virtual format, collect endless years of organization history, increase social media interactions, and leave an abundance of resources for the next year’s leadership to implement. The volunteer work put in by the members of the Board of Directors never stopped during the past year. While our year of service may have looked a little different than previous years, we grew in many ways as individuals and as an organization.

Signing off,

Jodie Weyland

2020 - 2021 National PAS Vice President