I joined BBYO in my freshman year of high school because my friend really encouraged me. I did not get involved in my chapter or region until the second semester of sophomore year. Since then, I have been elected to chapter board twice and thanks to BBYO I have so many lifelong friendships and amazing experiences. 

I decided I wanted to go on CLTC going into my junior year so I could bring back new skills and ideas to my chapter! My expectations were set very high, as were all of my 107 other 3LTCers, because of the infamous slogan tagged to the program:‍

“The best 12 days of your life”

Many people from my region, The Great Midwest, were in attendance at CLTC 3 because our former Regional N’siah, Caitlin Fagel, was one of the coordinators. Though I loved having so many people I knew at the camp with me, this made branching out a little harder. However, I am outgoing and started making friends fast. The pressure of the last day coming closer and closer truly accelerated my desire to bond with the CLTC community and I made some of the best friends I have ever had.

The programming helped give examples of how to engage members in your region in order to grow. The mock chapters helped me learn about parliamentary procedures, the election process, and how to create a program. Many of the concepts taught at CLTC were not too foreign to me. Many of them I had heard about with my prior experience on chapter board. However, I learned to master the recruitment procedure and manage my chapter both financially and culturally. I could see many of my peers also learning the information for the first time. In our mock chapters, I focused on learning and mastering parliamentary procedures. The CLTC guide provided to us at the start of the session continues to help me better my chapter. The real question still stands: Was it the best twelve days of my life?

Maybe CLTC was not the best twelve days of my life. However, they were some of the most impactful days on my Jewish identity and some of the most meaningful days of my life. By attending CLTC, I learned a lot about myself, BBYO as an organization, and those around me. I would recommend this program to members going into their sophomore year and am planning on attending ILTC next year. If you love BBYO and want to better your chapter and region, register for CLTC for twelve amazing days!