Tips for Attending the ASCA Conference & Exciting Updates!
Join Brandy Thompson as she takes over the Counselor Chat podcast for this episode! Brandy shares valuable tips for making the most of your ASCA conference experience. Get ready for essential packing advice, networking strategies, and must-see sessions.
**Key Points:**
ASCA Conference Tips:
– Wear comfortable shoes and pack light.
– Bring a sweater for cold conference rooms.
– Download the conference app for updates and schedules.
– Don’t miss the exhibit hall for networking and discovering new resources.
– Participate in social events and mixers to meet fellow counselors.
– Utilize social media and follow the hashtag #ASCA24 for real-time updates.
Exploring Kansas City:
– Visit the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, National WWI Museum, Kansas City Zoo, and more.
– Enjoy local BBQ at Joe’s Kansas City Bar-B-Que or Arthur Bryant’s.
Booth 506: Visit Carol and Brandi at the exhibit hall for the Perks Counseling Content Club. Get exclusive swag and learn about their comprehensive counseling resources.
Links and Resources:
– 2024 Summer Counselor Conference Registration
Follow Brandy at:
The Counseling Teacher Brandy on TpT
Subscribe & Review:
– Follow us on your favorite podcast platform and leave a review to help others find the show!
Thanks for tuning in! Until next time, enjoy your ASCA conference and happy conferencing!
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Feel free to make adjustments to fit your style and specific needs!
Resources Mentioned:
Transcript
Carol: You're listening to the counselor Chat podcast, a show for school counselors looking for easy to implement strategies, how to tips, collaboration, and a little spark of joy. I'm Carol Miller, your host. I'm a full time school counselor and the face behind counseling essentials. I'm all about creating simplified systems, data driven practices, and using creative approaches to engage students. If you're looking for a little inspiration to help you make a big impact on student growth and success, you're in the right place because we're better together. Ready to chat? Let's dive in.
Carol: I am so excited. The 2024 summer Counselor Conference registration page is open, so consider this your official invitation to join us this summer. The conference happens on July 26 through 28th. This virtual conference conference offers over 40 sessions and two amazing keynote sessions, and the sessions cover topics so helpful to school counselors, including sessions on group and individual counseling, organization, working with students with ADHD or anxiety, grief, autism, data collection, and so much more. All sessions are pre recorded and available for viewing until June 2025. We also have live q and a speaker channels, networking events, tons of free resources, and the opportunity to earn three graduate credits through the University of the Pacific. If you are looking for relevant PD that's super affordable, this is it. So why don't you join us? Just go to www.summercounselerconference.com to register. We'll see you inside the conference.
Brandy: Well, hello, hello and welcome to the counselor chat podcast. You may have noticed that this is not the voice of Carol Miller, but this is the voice of Brandi Thompson. While she is leaving for Asuka just a bit earlier than I am, we decided that I would do a podcast takeover today. So yes, hello fellow school counselors. You may know me, Brandi, from the counseling teacher or as Carol's business partner in the parks Counseling club. Today, I am excited that I get to share with you some valuable tips for attending the American School Counseling association conference, also known as the Ask a conference. Since we're going to be there this year together with you all, we thought it would be appropriate to talk about the weather in Kansas City this week. The conference in general, you know, some things to avoid, things to not miss, everything that you can think of to make sure that your conference experience is the best that it can be. All right, so Carol is flying in from New York. She is just about getting ready to do that in the next day or so. And I have elected to drive 8 hours from west Tennessee. We are right outside of Memphis, Tennessee, and I think it may be 7 hours and 50 minutes, depending on the route we take. So I'm bringing my husband because, you know, I'm a passenger princess. I am not real big on driving long distances on my own, so I will be bringing him with me as well. And his name is Sam. You can say hi to him, too. He will be hanging out with us a lot. Let's get into some tips for you guys. Check us out at booth 506. Carol and I will be in the exhibit hall for the parks counseling content club. If you haven't heard about it, we are a club for school counselors to have a turnkey program so that you have all of your small groups, youre individual counseling collaboration. Anything you need from start to finish, we have that for you. We have a scope and sequence. We have a community. Well, we have several scope and sequences for several topics that you need throughout the year. But come learn a little more about it in person. We've got some giveaways for you and some contests and things like that. So I'll talk about that more in a moment. Thinking back on my first ever trip to the Asuka conference, I remember just being really tired, especially the second day kind of catches up with you. I was overstimulated. I don't think I prepared enough rest in my day. I was just so excited and wanted to soak in as much as possible. And so I may have overdid it in day one, but. But that was okay. That was also back in 2016. That was my first ask a conference, and I was a little bit younger and a little may have had a little more energy, so I might want to take a few more precautions this year. But anyway, besides being tired and overstimulated, I did come home with some new blisters on my feet from the brand new shoes that I bought for the conference. I was excited. I didn't really know what to wear, but I knew I wanted to be cute. So these new shoes were not the best idea. So make sure that you don't wear a brand new pair that has not been worn in. You will be doing a lot of walking, by the way. So here we go. Here's our tips, starting with what to wear. Carol and I, Carol contributed a lot of these tips because she is the pro ASCA conference attendee and she had a lot of great advice that I've included on here as well. So what to wear when you're packing, make sure to keep it kind of light. You don't want to overpack because you're probably going to come back with a lot of extra stuff, papers, flyers, swagger, all kinds of things that you're going to pick up in the exhibit area. So you may want to have your own dedicated tote bag just for this purpose. Even though some vendors provide some lightweight tote bags or things that you can carry your swag around in, having your own will help you stand out. Because sometimes when everyone has the same color or the same looking tote, you set yours down. Someone else might pick it up by mistake. So you you might want to stand out and have your own, but it's not necessarily necessary. That's totally up to you. Also, like I noted before, wear comfortable shoes. It's a lot of walking, especially if you are staying at a different conference and you want to run back to your room. It can be a lot of walking, going back and forth to those kinds of things, and the different sessions could be spaced further apart than you realize. So make sure that you are not going to run into issues with your shoes. Bring more, more than one pair of shoes, just in case. Also, you may want to do some different types of activities at night, so you could have a pair of cute shoes for the nighttime. So don't make that mistake like me. And remember, there's no need to dress to formally for ASCA. Comfort is key because you're going to be among friends and colleagues in the education field. A lot of people wear t shirts, jeans or shorts or in tennis shoes. That's all fine. Some people show up in summer dresses and maxi dresses or a skirt and a blouse. It's really whatever you're comfortable in the but like I said, if you plan to do any outings or extracurricular experience in the city, be sure to pack for that as well. Also, you may not be planning to do something, but someone might suggest an activity that you weren't considering doing when you were packing. So maybe have a couple of versatile things in there just in case. All right, the weather forecast says that it's going to be hot and humid in Kansas City during this conference, so you might want to consider that there's also going to be a little bit of rain. Well, at least they say there may be some rain and thunderstorming, so a rain jacket might be useful for you as well. Always, always bring a sweater to a conference because even if it's sweltering hot outside like it's probably going to be in Kansas City in July, the conference rooms are often on full blast with the acoustical and you're going to want to be comfortable. So you're going to want to be able to put your sweater on and off as needed. So what not to miss. In our list of tips, we want to make sure that you didn't miss some things like the exhibit hall. This is one of the best places to meet new people, congregate with your new friends, and even meet people at the different booths that have a lot of great ideas for your program. During my very first trip to Asca, I met Steve from Scuda. You may have heard of Scuda. They're a software company. They have a software program that helps you track your time as a school counselor. And I honestly think that Scooter was one of the reasons that we obtained ramp at my school that year. This is not a paid promotion for them. It's just the truth. And I have always been singing their praises since 2016. So I just like to share when something is very helpful. So, like I said in the exhibit hall, which you do not want to miss because there are going to be so many ideas for your program from so many different types of vendors, things that you have heard of, things that you haven't heard of. Just a really fun place to be. So we're going to be in booth 506. We're going to have a big tropical background, so hopefully we'll stand out. You can find us pretty easily. And we have a special attendee offer in our booth for our counseling content club. Another thing you don't want to miss at the conference is the conference app. You want to download it so you can have access to everything right from your phone. Past attendees have said that this was crucial in staying up to date and in the know throughout the conference. So if any changes come up, things like that, the app is an easy way to go in and get that information. Also, do not miss the social events and mixers that they have. There's usually some gatherings with people in your state and region, and you can meet people who live closer to you. Don't miss those things. You just never know. You might end up meeting a future collaborator or even a lifelong friend. You'll be so glad that you did. In fact, Carol and I met at Asuka in New Orleans for the first time in person back in 2016. And we've been friends. Well, we were friends before that. We've known each other for over ten years, but we've mostly just talked over the Internet, the phone, social media, things like that, emails, different groups that we collaborate in, and most recently, most recently, the perks counseling content club that we're doing together. So networking is a big part of the conference. Don't be shy to strike up a conversation with someone new or even invite yourself to join a group or a dinner. People are expecting that many attendees are coming to ASCA Solo and they appreciate the company and maybe they're too scared to ask. So it's great if you are the one to initiate that. Also smiling we tell our students all the time if they want to be approachable and learn to make new friends or be available to make new friends, they need to be smiling and taking notice of our facial expressions. So I personally have a resting, worried face and it's often mistaken for the RBF. The one I can't say I can say it, but I don't like to. If you have an RBF or something similar like I do, it's a good idea to do a quick check every now and then just to make sure that even if we're burning up hot or if we are freezing cold, that we are looking like we are someone that other people will want to engage with. So that's just a quick tip about that. All right, another good thing to do is to throw an easy little snack at your bag that you're carrying around just in case you don't feel like walking all the way back to your room during a smaller break. Sometimes time will fly by and you won't realize that you haven't eaten in a while and you might need a little protein to keep you going before the next meal. Another good thing to have is an extra battery or charger for your devices. You may want to go ahead and put your charger in your purser bag so that you can charge without having to run back to your hotel room. You don't want to miss out on capturing some important networking events or opportunities because of a dead battery or a dead phone, so take that advice for sure. Also, if you're in a session and you're realizing that it's really just not what you thought it was and you don't think you want to stay, don't feel obligated to stay, it is okay to get up and go to another session. This is your money that you're spending, and we all know we don't have a lot of extra cash flow as school counselors. So make the most of your conference and attend the sessions that benefit you. They're not going to get offended. People try to get in a couple of sessions, sometimes during the same time period, and they expect that, so it's okay. Another thing that it's good to have is cash. You don't necessarily have to have cash, but it never hurts to have it on hand when you're on any kind of conference trip or in a place that you're not familiar with, things like parking or tips for people that you weren't expecting to need to tip, like the hotel or random. Maybe you have to share an Uber and you need to split, you know, a bill with someone. While most places will accept credit cards, having that cash can save you from any surprises that might come up. So if you're staying at the conference hotel, remember to budget for parking costs if you have your car, or if you decide to rent a car. Some hotels charge extra for parking, as does the Lowe's hotel where we are staying, so it's best to be prepared for that. I actually just realized that we are going to be paying an extra 30 or $40 a day for parking that I was not expecting. But it's just good to know that ahead of time, I guess, since we are driving, if you're flying, you won't have to worry about that. All right. Social media. You want to make use of social media during your trip. If you can follow the conference hashtag, it is hash Aska 24. That is Asca 24. You can post pictures and use that hashtag so that everybody can kind of collaborate. A lot of fun little secondary hashtags will probably come up, and. And you may even meet a group of people from that secondary hashtag. You know, it could be kind of like an inside joke. So keep up with that if you are trying to be in the know. All right? Also, that's another place where you might find out about last minute changes. You find out about popular sessions that are going on and find under other like minded counselors like yourself to connect with that way. All right. Getting around town. If you are wanting to do something in Kansas City while you're there, if you didn't bring your car and you don't want to uber everywhere, that could get expensive. You might try renting a car through the Turo app. That's t. Uh, this is an app that lets you rent from local people in the area. I first discovered tarot about four years ago. My husband and I went on our 25th anniversary trip in New Orleans, and we wanted a special car to use. So we used a car from Turo, and it was pretty cool. We would not have been able to get a little red BMW from enterprise or another corporate car company like that. But on Turo, you get to actually choose the actual car that you're gonna drive. So that was kind of fun. And after that, we've been using them ever since, and we love it. Just be sure to read the host reviews to make sure that you are getting a good host and that you're gonna have a smooth experience. It can be pricey, but sometimes renting a turo car for a week is cheaper than ubering back and forth everywhere you go, especially if you share the cost with other attendees. Okay, so what do you want to do in Kansas City? Well, if you're, if you're into art, you're in luck, because they have a great art culture in Kansas City. You can go to the Nelson Adkins Museum of Art. They have an impressive collection of artworks spanning various cultures and time periods. If you bring your family or someone in your, someone with you or yourself is into history, they have a national World War one museum and memorial that has a poignant and educational experience element to it. There's also the Kansas City Zoo. They have a lot of different animals and some interactive exhibits. The country club plaza. This is a shopping district that's kind of spanish inspired architecture. You can do some retail therapy and have a lot of dining options there as well. If you have a sports enthusiast with you, or if you are, you can go to Kauffman Stadium or area Arrowhead Stadium, baseball and football fans, that might be for you. And if you like barbecue, Kansas City is supposedly known for some barbecue. Some of the favorite locals say are Joe's Kansas City barbecue or Arthur Bryant's. So that sounds like a good stop for you if you're into barbecue. Those two places have been highly recommended by some locals. Also ask some of the locals while you're there if you're interested in what they have to say about what's good to eat out there. You can also go through loose park. It's supposedly beautiful green space, perfect for relaxing and reflection. Go out there and try some mindfulness. They have a rose garden and some serene ponds. Get you a little bit away from the hustle and bustle if you have time. So some of you are getting there early or staying a few extra days. Those are some tips that you might find helpful. So I hope that you can make the most of your ask a conference experience with these tips. And remember, just enjoy yourself. Enjoy the learning and the networking and the fun that the ASCA conference has to offer. Happy conferencing, everyone. Don't forget to come say hello to Carol and I in booth 506 at the exhibit hall where we're going to be talking to you about the perks counseling content club and giving away swag to everyone. Everyone who comes is going to get something, and I am loading my suv with things to bring. That's one of the reasons that I'm driving is so that I can give out all this cool stuff. We've got shirts, we got mugs, we've got neat little googly eye pins. We've got mirrors for your purse, for your trinkets, for your desktop, and some surprise things as well. And also a conference attendee exclusive that we will talk about then. Carol and I are bringing a ton of our curriculum for you to look at in person and see what you're getting. We have district information packets, you name it. We really cannot wait to meet you guys in person and put a face with a name and meet new people. And we just hope that you all have a safe and fun trip. Goodbye.
Carol: Thanks for listening to today's episode of Counselor Chat. All of the links I talked about can be found in the show notes and@counselingessentials.org podcast. Be sure to hit, follow, or subscribe on your favorite podcast player. And if you would be so kind to leave a review, I'd really appreciate it. Want to connect? Send me a DM on Facebook or instagramounselingessentials until next time. Can't wait till we chat. Bye for now. Our channel.