Wisconsin DECA Direct

Waunakee DECA has made some immense changes this year to leverage its CTSO as much as possible. The officer team entered the school year thinking “quality over quantity” and this has become their most prominent initiative for this school year. The team made it abundantly clear to their membership that they prioritize quality members over the quantity of members. This mindset is manifested in every officer and has spiked enormous participation among their membership. 

The several actions that made sure that their members were part of Waunakee DECA to grow, learn, and volunteer; attributes of a quality member; are listed below.

1. Participation Requirement/Bylaws

The officer/advisor team made it clear to every prospective member that there will be requirements they must meet. The most prevalent requirement is that they must participate in two DECA activities by the end of the school year with one of them having to be during the first semester of the school year. If members did not participate, the officer/advisor team would put their membership into question. Oftentimes, people need motivation to participate and this incentive has encouraged their membership to participate more than ever when thinking retrospectively to the previous years. The participation requirement is the most essential bylaw created but the rest of them are outlined in Waunakee DECA’s policy/privacy document. The creation of bylaws has exponentially improved their chapter and the officer and advisor team has been left in awe when observing the surplus amount of people that participate.

2. Communication

Communication is one of the most important aspects that a CTSO must embrace to its extent. Without communication, members are left confused and wondering what to even do. The officer team has embraced communication more than ever this year. There are several methods of communication: Instagram, Gmail, GroupMe, the school announcements, their website, and more. With the membership properly informed, it is evident that the chapter’s successful communication contributed to the exponential increase in participation among its members. As mentioned before, you can find Waunakee DECA on Instagram, and here is the link to Waunakee DECA’s website.

Waunakee DECA highly encourages other chapters to institute similar practices to take their chapter to the next level. With any questions regarding how to institute bylaws or requirements and how to ensure active participation in your chapter, please feel free to contact Vishnu Kata at 26katavi@waunakeecsd.org.