CFI Student Leadership Conference 2009
Posted on June 30th, 2009 by SarahThough I (Sarah Kaiser) won’t be the president or a group officer for the upcoming year, neither of the next co-presidents were available to go to the annual CFI Student Leadership Conference in Buffalo, NY, so I went in their place to get ideas and inspiration for the coming year.
This was my second trip to the headquarters of the Center for Inquiry Transnational, the founding location of a think tank promoting science, reason, and free inquiry in all areas of human endeavor. CFI is not only one of the largest secular organizations (if not the largest) in the world, it also has a branch called CFI On Campus that runs events to help train and motivate student leaders on university and high school campuses around the globe. SAIU is an affiliate of this organization, and receives many helpful resources from them, including assistance with speakers, promotional materials, invaluable advice, networking, and more.
My trip to Buffalo lasted from Wed, June 24 until Monday, June 29, and in this time I had a chance to meet up with old friends, and make lots of new ones, as well as share ideas to make the upcoming school year rock! Instead of going through all the details of the conference, I’ll share a few photos of some of my personal highlights here. You can see the full set of albums from the conference on Facebook or on my Zooomr page.

From left: Debbie Goddard, Dan Riley, Tracy Kennedy, and Adam Isaak. Debbie and Dan are staff that do campus organizing, and Adam is an intern this summer. Tracy goes to school with Adam. This was at a trip to Niagara Falls, near Buffalo.

The plaque SAIU received for our community activism! Interacting with the community is definitely an important thing for any campus group to do, and I'd like us to continue to do more of this in the future.

Sarah receiving the group's award for Community Activism. We got this award for our work on the Indiana Atheist Bus Campaign. (Photo credit: Derek Levi Osbourne Wendler.)



Sweetness.
Congrats on your award; you are an awesome group! I’ll bet you will do many great things for secularism in the future. :)
Congratulations for being the Secular Student Alliance Affiliate of the Year! You worked so hard. You deserve it.