<p>Is anyone here familiar with the "Future Business Leaders of America"? I was thinking about starting a chapter at my school, but I haven't really been able to figure out what they do, what a typical meeting consists of, etc.</p>
<p>If you could give me some information about that organization, I would appreciate it.</p>
<p>Jack</p>
<p>There's an FBLA club at my school. I'm thinking about joining the club during this school year. I don't know what goes on in the meetings, but I do know that they compete in competitions.</p>
<p>I'm pretty sure they don't do much of anything except assign titles.</p>
<p>Anyone else?</p>
<p>start a DECA chapter instead. Its WAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYY more fun... I mean educational.
(Internationals is in Atlanta this year!)</p>
<p>That's actually why I started this thread. My school already has a DECA chapter, and I'm wondering if the two organizations are different enough to operate side by side. I called FBLA headquarters, and they said they are completely different (DECA is marketing; FBLA is economics, finance, etc.). I just wanted to hear what FBLA is like from unbiased third parties before I try to make a pitch to the business department at school.</p>
<p>Anyone else? I start school Wednesday, and have to prepare a spiel for the business department if I decide for it.</p>
<p>I'm president of FBLA</p>
<p>You compete in competitions in regionals than onto state and nationals. Typical meeting is me talking about different competitions going on in the area, and hands out where people can sign up. FBLA is known for March of Dimes. We also do other fundraisers through out the year.</p>
<p>FBLA can be a lot of different things. It has many opportunities for competition, leadership, service, etc. It is pretty different from DECA.</p>
<p>The conferences are a lot of fun. </p>
<p>I'm a member at a very successful chapter, and I know quite a bit about the organization. Let me know if you have any specific questions.</p>
<p>Thank you. I guess my major question would be asking you to describe a typical meeting for you. Is it primarily preparing for the competitions? What is the format of the competitions?</p>
<p>You say it is pretty different from DECA, do you say that because you have experience with DECA? If so, how is it different?</p>
<p>We meet twice a month, and we do a lot of different things:
- get community business leaders to come speak (including a recent harvard grad starting his own business, the owner of a baseball team, etc.) This is probably easier for us than it is for some other chapters because we live in a pretty big city and have some connections.
- give workshops on topics like preparing a resume, job interviews, etc
- play games/eat pizza</p>
<p>For competition prep, we usually just give students textbooks.</p>
<p>There are a ton of competitions; check out the competition guide at fbla-pbl.org. Most are individual and require you to take a multiple choice test. Others are team events. Some include presentations. There is a wide variety of topics, including most programming languages, marketing, entrepreneurship, etc.</p>
<p>I guess I don't know much about DECA. I've just heard that FBLA covers a wider variety of topics? maybe?</p>