After the success of our regional presentation, I was ready to focus on my finals and applications for summer jobs. Enactus had different ideas, however, and I quickly found myself getting pulled into presentations for the Enactus National Competition.
This was a new presentation that combined our previous two, so I was very comfortable with my old lines and very uncomfortable with my new ones. We spent hours practicing, but none of us could seem to get it memorized enough to work on timing and we were easily distracted by more important things, such as team shopping. Thankfully, we had a team retreat planned for the weekend before the competition, and the three of us presenters were using a significant portion of the time to memorize and practice lines (between the food and fun, of course!).
Unfortunately, one of the presenters quit after the retreat, leaving us other two (plus our new President and amazing videographer) to completely rework our lines, cues, and timed video.
In three days.
So we did! We didn’t sleep, we didn’t slack off, we ate and breathed our presentation. We were up late the night before and early day-of. Not once did we get through the presentation without stumbling in rehearsals, but we had a presentation despite the idea of withdrawing flashing through our minds.
The competition was held at home in Vancouver this year, so we were luckily able to eat well and rest in our own beds and practice as we fell asleep the night before. We met up for last-minute practice beforehand with the team and could barely get through our lines, and the next thing we knew we were in front of the judges.
We nailed it. Somehow we both remebered our lines and cues and got the timing right and lined everything up, and all of our struggling and frustrations were absolutely worth the pride I felt stepping out of the presentation room.
At the awards ceremony we were all very excited, especially after hearing there would be a new Spirit Award for teams that had smaller projects and presentations. We figured we had a shot at that, especially with the comments about our team spirit from previous years and competitions.
When we heard that we didn’t receive the Spirit Award we were all feeling disappointed, but we knew that we had worked as hard as we could have on it.
Then we heard our team being called. Because somehow, with our last-minute, much-too-short, never-rehearsed-right presentation, we had placed Runner Up in our category.
We were beyond elated as we ran onto the stage to get pur trophy and picture, and stayed that way when we went out to take more pictures and again as we all went home to sleep before watching the final rounds the next day.
Left to right: Karen (Faculty Adviser), Sandra (Cues/Timing), Andrew (Presenter, VP),me,Betty (o. President), Kirsten (i. President), Danny (Videographer/Tech)
To be cheesy but truthful, this presentation reminded me that with a little sweat and tears (and stress and teamwork), anything is possible. It changed the way I look at daunting, seemingly impossible tasks and has led me to many more opportunities that I would never have had the confidence to pursue without it.
To be honest, I initially didn’t want to present at the Enactus Regional Competition. I don’t want to think of how much I would have missed if I had turned it down.
In the first semester of my second year at Capilano, one of my friends mentioned Enactus to me and encouraged me to join. He told me about the new financial literacy program that was running and figured it would be a great opportunity for a future accountant. Agreeing with him, I gave my email to the recruiters at the nearby table and didn’t think anything of it for around three months.
Over winter break I discovered that one of my other friends was in Enactus, which reminded me of my desire to join the team, and asked her if there was any way I could join when school began again. Luckily there was, and the first week back to school saw me running to catch the end of their meeting after my other meeting and being introduced to the team. They had been told by my friend that I was good at presenting and wanted me to audition as a presenter for the Regional Competition. I agreed to try out before discovering I was required to memorize a short script for the audition and half of a five minute script for the actual competition. Being horrible at memorization, I immediately balked at the requirements before figuring I likely wouldn’t be chosen if I couldn’t memorize.
A week later my time slot arrived, and, since I did present in the competition, it isn’t hard to determine that I was asked to take the role a few days after. I hadn’t expected to be chosen, but after a small internal debate I responded in the affirmative. It was an entire mile leap out of my comfort zone, but I had agreed to this much and decided to see it through.
When I got the final script, I didn’t think I would ever be able to memorize my two and a half minutes worth of lines, but after a few days of going through it I began to get it. We met for the first time to go through the script with the video on the Sunday before we left, leaving less than a week before the competition, which did nothing to lower the nerves and stress levels of anyone.
We practiced for four hours that day, and went through it once the next day, before Wednesday had us boarding the plane to Calgary. We still had a couple of days to practice together, so nerves weren’t too high, but it finally sank in that we were going to be presenting on Friday whether we were ready or not.
Wednesday evening was spent settling in to our AirBNB we had rented, and Thursday morning was spent lounging around before the president meetings and then the opening ceremonies. I was asked to tag along to the meetings, since I would be returning the next year and both the president and vice president would not be, before joining the rest of the group for the ceremony. That night was spent rehearsing from around nine o’clock to three o’clock, before we all got our three hours of sleep and headed to do our tech check the next morning. The nerves didn’t set in until about an hour before the presentation, and we spent that time practicing the presentation as many times as we possibly could.
Our first competition was the TD Entrepreneurship Challenge at 9:45 am, and then we had Scotiabank Youth Empowerment at 1:30 pm. Both presentations were the same, and both were live-streamed on the Enactus Capilano Facebook page. The presentation can be watched below.
After completing the two presentations, I had a moment to look back and realize just how far our teams had come since the Sunday practice as well as how much I had learned from taking a role that pushed me out of my comfort zone. Not only had I met the most amazing group of people, but I had also gained confidence in my abilities to memorize and present. I am so thankful that I was given the opportunity to represent such an amazing team and am looking forward to continuing to contribute to Enactus in my remaining years of school.
