CedarBridge Academy began its 2015 school year with the school’s Student Government Association travelling to Washington DC for the annual LEAD conference.

This year’s theme was “Energise your Leadership” and the event was held in the Marriott Gateway hotel in Arlington, Virginia.

Students were engaged in developmental leadership experiences with schools around the world. The conference was organised by the National Association of Secondary School Principals, which is the parent organisation to the National Association of Student Councils and National Honour Society.

Leaders took part in a list of workshops about how we can improve our school spirit and become better individuals.

On each day, the first session featured a special guest. These very energetic, funny personalities engaged us in interactive presentations, teaching us the value of what it means to lead. They included “The Original” Mike Smith, the Media Guy, Shu Shaffer, and Amy Gallimore. Workshops focused on the theme, “Energise your leadership”, and popular workshops were “Do YOU Have Talent?”, “Fun Fridays”, “Get in the Game!”, and “Stop, Drop, and Lead!”.

The students also engaged in many leisure activities around Washington DC and Virginia. We visited the Smithsonian museums of Natural History and Air and Space, where students viewed the precious animals, carvings, remains and gems of Earth’s history. Two lucky students took a ride in a flight simulator.

The whole group also went ice-skating, which was a very interesting and difficult experience for some, but was very entertaining.

We travelled to the historic and impressive Howard University on an admissions tour around campus. We also visited George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, and were privileged to visit the House of Representatives on the Congress Tour.

Inside the building was beautiful architecture of the 19th century along with paintings, statues, and plaques of America’s past leaders.

We visited a number of interesting and iconic places, such as Washington DC’s most popular sites — the Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial, the Martin Luther King Jr Memorial, and the White House and its visitor centre. Temperatures were not on our side, which resulted in finding restaurants that where not very far away. We dined at the famous Busboys and Poets restaurant, which is known as a haven for writers, thinkers and performers in America. We also attended a Wizards vs Hornets NBA game, which was a very new and exciting experience for all of us.

All students had a great time on the trip. We met lots of new people and we endured the cold — it’s safe to say we enjoy our moderate climate in Bermuda.

We would like to give an enormous thank you and express our appreciation to Khandice Darrell and Maxine Webb for organising our activities during the trip. Everything flowed smoothly each day, even when unexpected difficulties arose.

Morale stayed high thanks to the schedule created by Mrs Darrell and the persistent humour of the group.

We would like to also thank the NASSP for putting on a very informative and fun conference for students.