ICON Recap of the 71st International Key Club

Convention. Anaheim, California July 1-6.

Day one of our travels! With 43 kids traveling from over

three states, we had to fly out of three different airports

and be there as early as 4am for departure. With every-

one being sleepy, our flight to LAX was a piece of cake.

As an added bonus the crew departing from Regan got a

pit stop in Chicago, and the ones from Baltimore got to

spend a whole 30 minutes in Dallas! Flying cross county

during the day has it’s perks; we got to see some of the

most breath taking views of beautiful mountains, ridges

and even the Gran Canyon. The excitement filled the air

as we walked into our hotel and saw other Key Clubbers

from the Missouri-Arkansas District!

A little delay on our rooms did not stop us; even though

the guys got their rooms ahead of the gals, we managed

to get changed and hit the beach in no time. Before we

knew it, we were swimming the waves and playing volley-

ball with Key Clubbers from the Rocky Mountain Dis-

trict on the world famous Huntington Beach! After a few

hours of playing Frisbee and doing some quick shop-

ping, we all settled down for a campfire and s’mores! Per-

fect way to end our first day in California.

DAY 1

Wednesday was the day. The day we would all experience

the Magic of Disney and see the place where all the

Dreams Come True. Waking up bright and early, rush-

ing through registration for Convention and before we

knew it– we were strolling the park of Walk Disney him-

self. It was quite an experience itself! “Going to Disney-

land was, as corny as it sounds- magical. Being there

made me feel like a little kid again. “My favorite thing

was probably Space Mountain because I absolutely love

roller coasters!”- Vicky Nguyen Division 2D.

We later gathered at the hotel for the first activity of the

Convention– the Meet and Greet! We all made friends,

traded pins and played fun games! One game that was

really easy to set up and raised a lot of money for Elimi-

nate! Anyone can go up to a booth and buy a “Sticker”

for $2, than they are able to put that sticker on anyone in

the room and request them to go to “jail” which is a

marked off area of the room. In order for someone to get

out of jail they had to raise an additional $4. This fun

and easy game raised a total of $6 a person and made

some temporary tension in the room! Mr.Stankus jailed

Anastasia three times before he ran out of money! Sim-

ple games like these can be played at your school’s sports

games and homecoming dances! Casey and Arshad did a

great job repping the crab suit and even photo bombing

Key TV at least a dozen times!

DAY 2

The International Convention finally kicked off with a

general session and the opening ceremony. The ceremo-

ny was very inspirational, especially the barring of the

flags.

We soon broke off into caucusing which some would say

was the most fun part of convention. Seated in a room

with Key Clubbers from our sister Districts of Ohio and

New York, we paid close attention to each and every one

of the 32 candidates for the offices of International Presi-

dent, International Vice President and International

Trustee. Each one had five minutes in our room at their

liberty meaning they could decide how much time they

wanted to allocate to their speech and for questioning.

All the candidates were exceptional but a few definitely

stood out. Our room roared with support and excite-

ment as our very own, Liz Moore gave her speech for the

International Board.

Following that, all 800 some delegates got together to de-

cide the future of KCI and vote on the proposed amend-

ments (Results can be found on the next page.)

We later spent the night dancing away in our Hawaii

outfits!

“Unlike any House of Dele-gates session I've seen, the first session of HoD at ICON was filled with controversy and drama. We approved a few simple amendments, and after a lot of argument, we raised dues to $7.50(is this right?). When we had to vote on Amendment #5, specify-ing that a member can only hold leadership positions for a maximum of four years, things got really crazy. Dele-gates were stirring up the room and arguing with the chairwoman and Kiwanians. In the end, the amendment was not passed.”

-Dylan Colby D6A

DAY 3

House of Delegates

1*

2*

3*

4

5

Overview: This amendment redefined the requirements to form a new District. Cur-rently they must have no less than 25 active Key Clubs and no less than 375. It is

proposed to change to at least 15 active Key Clubs and at least 450 active Key Club

members.

Results: PASSED

Overview: This amendment gives a more clear definition of who is eligible to be an Honorary member and how they differ from a due-paying member. This amend-

ment proposed that any person, not in high school or an education equivalent can

be elected. Honorary members shall pay no dues and shall not be entitled to any

privilege of a Key Club member.

Results: PASSED

Overview: Before this amendment passed, 50 cents of each member’s yearly dues was deposited in the Youth Opportunity Grant (YOF) fund. When this bylaw was

originally written, the intention was to grow the YOF account to US$1 million and

use the annual interest to award grant recipients. The YOF account now exceeds

US$1.6 million, which makes it self-sustaining. This amendment won’t affect clubs’

chances of receiving YOF grants.

Results: PASSED

Overview: This amendment raised the Key Club International Dues by $0.50 mak-ing the total Key Club dues $7.00. Because this amendment was approved by Kiwa-

nis International, it will go into immediate effect.

Results: PASSED

Overview: Amendment was intended to limit the amount of years a member can hold an office at any level of Key Club International. Although it was highly debated

in House of Delegates and even amended, it did not get passed

Results: FAILED

6*

*Amendment must be approved by Kiwanis International

Overview: Amendment allowed anyone in a secondary education system to be eligi-ble to be a member of Key Club International.

Results: PASSED

Day four for Capital District was also the fourth of

July! We had many activities planned for this day

which is why everyone woke up early and ready to

learn!

We had two phenomenal speakers; Matt Mattson

and Luise Ashby, both of whom left the audience

with the inspiration to change our communities for

the better. Mr. Mattson kept the audience engaged

and had us laughing as we participated in his activi-

ties and Ms. Ashby told us about her trauma after a

car crash and how she turned her life around.

The motivational speakers followed by a series of

workshops and the service fair. The service fair was a

great way to get new ideas for service projects we can

do in Capital!

Shortly afterwards, we got in our seats for the recog-

nition session. Everyone was so happy and excited for

the awards we received for club contests as well as the

Robert F.Lucas Awards. In between the awards we

heard many outstanding talent show performances,

including our own Kiyoon Ko who played Let It Go.

Following the session, we all put our red, white and

blue gear on and went on to have dinner, explore the

city of Anaheim and of course watch the legendary

fireworks at Disneyland.

DAY 4

Our last day in California was both bitter and sweet.

We had made so many new friends and got to love

each other like a family. This day was filled with a lot

of patience, especially from the House of Delegates

and of course anticipation with our very own Liz

Moore on the ballot for International Board. But be-

fore we got to the voting, we spent a good portion of

our day attending and facilitating workshops. This was

one of the most important part of convention since

every participant had the opportunity to learn skills

and ideas from other servant leaders from around the

world. The Capital District had several members host

their own workshops that turned out to be total suc-

cesses! We took back plenty of new ideas for our clubs,

Divisions and District. We cannot wait to start plan-

ning all the new, fun activities and service projects.

We also had an Eliminate Session that our very own

Jeffery Wolf presented it with a fun and interactive

game show.

Before we knew it, everyone was in tears as we started

loading the baggage on our way to the airport. It was

hard saying goodbye to the beautiful state of California

and even harder to the friends we have made there.

On the way to the airport we received the best news

that Liz was elected as International Trustee and that

was truly an amazing ending to an amazing week.

DAY 5