by Andy Dunn

Staff Writer

DECA, one of the most popular clubs at Westford Academy, is back again this year. It has brought new ideas and a new look the club led by WA business teachers John Rogers and Adam Gagne.

DECA has recently done several things to bring it into the new age of technology, as well as make some improvements to the competitions.

According to Rogers, DECA averages 150 members every year. This year WA DECA has about 200, showing an increase in the membership rate.

The increased enrollment may be due to  DECA’s recent changes to the program, including brand new competitions that are exclusive just for new DECA members, and also communicating via social networking.

DECA has also improved their communication with their members or anyone who is interested, which contributes to the increase in members. For the first time, DECA is now on the extremely popular social network site Facebook [Click here to see DECA on Facebook].

Rogers says, “I used to use Naviance to try to connect to the students but I found that [the students] don’t use Naviance to check their messages and stuff, but they’re on Facebook all the time. So right now we have about 1000 members that are “friending” us on Facebook.”

DECA has successfully used Facebook as a communication tool to communicate better, one of DECA’s main goals this year.

“Facebook has absolutely helped DECA. First, it is really easy to get the word out about things. We made an event for the Halloween dance, and in just a few hours over 300 people RSVPed yes,” said DECA officer Alexis Jacobsen.

DECA has clearly achieved one of their major goals of trying to communicate to the students, as shown by the increase in members this year.

But DECA’s goals don’t stop with just communicating better. DECA also wants to send as many kids as possible to the highest level of competition they can perform at.

For the first time, WA DECA is introducing the Principle Series of events, exclusively for first-timers in DECA.

The Principles Series of competitions are exclusive for new DECA members, with Westford Academy offering Principles of Business Management, Principles of Finance, Principles of Hospitality and Tourism, and Principles of Marketing.

By having competitions just for first-timers, “They don’t have to compete against veterans and that should work out well [for them],” says Rogers.

The Principle Series has encouraged new members to join because they feel they have a better shot at winning a competition.

“I like to think that the first-time events help encourage people to join. I know that when I signed up for DECA freshman year, I didn’t expect to do well in competition at all; I just wanted to get a practice year in and then take it seriously sophomore year. Now people can compete against other new people, learn how role plays work, AND have a chance at advancing to States or even Internationals,” says Jacobsen

The Principles Series will hopefully help DECA achieve their main goal of having all the contestants as well prepared as possible for their competition by evening the playing field for first-timers.

Westford Academy DECA has also kept their “Role Play Training Sessions” for this upcoming year. The Role-Playing training sessions will start in November every Tuesday and Thursday right up until the dates of the competitions. The idea behind these training sessions goes back to one of DECA’s main goals: preparing the contestants as thoroughly as possible.

DECA is an international student organization that operates in over 4,500 high schools with over 200,000 members.