On I-495 in Massachusetts, we were delayed over two hours for a tractor-trailer accident, the second year in a row. This made us two and a half hours late getting to Springfield, arriving about 4:30PM. We had to rush to registration, get to our rooms and change for the first General Session at 5:30. This year's convention had 83 clubs attending out of the 151 Key Clubs in New England, and 960 Key Clubbers and advisors were registered for the convention. The Dexter Key Club took a record number of 19 students to convention with advisor Rick Whitney and Lt. Governor Maurice Neal and Corinne Neal from Dexter Sunrise Kiwanis.

The General Session Friday night had Susan Muzzy of Greenville, a former member of the Greenville Key Club, as the Key Note speaker. She talked about her work with the homeless in New York City.

Also, Friday night, all five clubs in Division II received our Early Bird Dues patches. Our division was the only division in New England to all have Early Bird Dues. Dexter and Penquis also received the Governor's Outstanding Club Award for increasing our membership by at least 10% this year. Following the General Session we all attended caucus meetings to hear candidates for district offices give speeches. The Maine caucus was one of the largest there and all the Maine Key Clubbers were in one room for this. Following the caucus meeting, Key Clubbers attended a dance until midnight.

On Saturday, each club had two delegates for the House of Delegates with a short session where several more candidates were nominated for district offices. Workshops were held through the morning.

The Dexter Key Club set up two displays at the service fair, featuring the Welcome to My Home fundraiser and the Hats for Bekah fundraiser, and we were busy for the whole two hours. At one point in the fair, everyone in the room was crowded around our two displays. There were about 40 exhibitors altogether. The service fair was a great success for us and many clubs took information back to their clubs to try and duplicate the projects. Another caucus session was held in the afternoon to hear the candidates give their last speeches before elections on Sunday morning.

The clubs from Division II did very well at convention with the Dexter Key Club earning eight awards on Saturday night. Dexter and Penquis are in the Silver Division (clubs of 35-60) with Penquis winning first place in Project Awake and Dexter taking second. Project Awake is an award for working with Kiwanis family.

The Penquis Key Club cooks breakfast every week for their Kiwanis club. Dexter received a second place for Annual Achievement and Penquis won a third place for the same award. In addition, Dexter received the following awards; first place in Single Service Award for the Hats for Bekah project, second place in Traditional Scrapbook, and third place in club poster.

Jana Kenney received an Outstanding Presidents Award which is the first time the Dexter Key Club has won this award. Rebecca Fick won the Sandy Nininger Award for Outstanding Key Club member. Only three are given out each year out of almost 7,000 New England District Key Clubbers. Amelia McDermmitt, from Foxcroft Academy, received an Outstanding Lt. Governor Award as our division's representative on the New England District. Greenville, Foxcroft and P.C.H.S. are in the Bronze division (under 35 members). Greenville won a first place in Secretary reports, third place in Project Awake, and third place in Single Service.

Foxcroft Academy won a second place in the poster contest and a second place for secretary reports. Greenville and Dexter also won Distinguished Club Award from Key Club International, two of only 12 clubs in the New England District to win this designation. Near the end of the session the clubs at convention presented checks for the district fundraiser in what is called the Parade of Checks. The total raised from the checks came to $30,588. This year the donations for district projects is being split between Camp Sunshine on Sebago Lake, the Kiwanis Pediatric Trauma Unit at Children's Hospital at Tuft's Medical Center in Boston and Children of Peace, a charity that helps homeless children in Vietnam by getting them off the streets and into schools.

Following the General Session, another dance was held for the Key Clubbers attending the convention. The Dexter Key Club went to Champions downstairs in the hotel to have supper and celebrate our awards. Curfew again was at midnight in the Marriott and Sheraton Hotels, where the Key Clubs had twelve floors reserved for the convention.

On Sunday morning, the House of Delegates placed their ballots for district officers. We all packed up and checked out before attending the Governor's luncheon at 11:00. This year’s board was retired and Governor Jeff Poulin of the Scarborough Key Club gave his farewell address.

The new New England Board was installed and we packed our bus and headed back to Maine tired, but satisfied having done very well this year at convention. We all stopped at the Maine Mall food court for supper for an hour and then the final leg home, reaching Dexter just a little after 8:00 PM. A long, but rewarding weekend. The Dexter Key Club would like to thank all the advisors and chaperones that helped out on the bus and at convention to make it a most memorable."This content originally appeared as a copyrighted article in the April 10th edition of SVWeekly.com and is used here with permission."