On 5 November 2016, hundreds of students came together to compete in the DECA Toronto regional competition. This year, the competition was held at Woburn Collegiate Institute. DECA is an international business competition for high school students. Its Ontario chapter saw a record breaking number of competitors with over 13 000 registered students.
After competing in regional competitions, qualified students will compete at the Provincial competition, which will be held in downtown Toronto, from 9 to 11 February, 2017. The top students from each event will qualify for the International Career Development Conference (ICDC), which will take place in Anaheim, CA next spring.
MGCI students posing with their ribbons and medals on 5 November 2016 at Woburn C.I.’s Toronto Regionals DECA Competition. Photo: Matthew Tse
Marc Garneau students competed in various events, including Individual Oral and Principles events, and Team Oral events. Each included an online multiple choice exam and a roleplay. Unlike previous years, this year’s MGCI DECA members were given more opportunities to train with the chapter’s executives to improve both their roleplay and exam performances. The new strategy’s success was evident; this year’s MGCI DECA chapter achieved ground-breaking success, doubling the number of awards won last year.
MGCI DECA chapter executive Cindy Cui, who placed first overall in the Travel and Tourism Team Decision Making event, was extremely happy with the school’s performance, commenting “I’m definitely proud of my partner and myself, but I’m more proud of how well our chapter did as a whole, especially the new members. Everyone worked incredibly hard leading up to regionals, from the roleplay training sessions before, during, and after school to the hours spent studying PIs and exam, and it was amazing to see all that work pay off. I can’t wait to see what MGCI DECA brings to Provincials next February!”
The event was well organized, creating a professional environment to cater to the high standards of DECA Ontario. Nelson Lee, who placed first overall in the Principles of Business Management and Administration event, said, “As a first time participant, I found that the DECA Regionals event was very well organized. All the rooms were properly labeled and there were very clear instructions provided by the volunteers. With the help of excellent executives in the Marc Garneau Chapter and constant support from each other, Marc Garneau had an outstanding result. With vast amounts of resources provided by the Executives we competed with confidence and style and placed as one of the best schools in the region.”
Final rankings will be released on 9 November, 2016, officially announcing the qualifyiers for the Provincial competition. Ryan Lin, the president of Marc Garneau’s DECA chapter was very pleased with everyone’s efforts and hoped for this success to continue in the future years: “The most important thing we hope to accomplish is to establish and further build upon this selection and training process so DECA MGCI continues to grow for years to come.”
The Reckoner congratulates the following students for their outstanding accomplishments while representing Marc Garneau at the 2016 DECA Toronto regional competition:
Jason Cai: Top 10 exam and Roleplay, 1st Overall
Nelson Lee: Top 10 exam and Roleplay, 1st Overall
Cindy Cui and Riling Chen: Top 10 Exams and Roleplay, 1st Overall
Russell Ijaya: Top 10 Exam and Roleplay, 1st Overall
Ryan Lin: Top 10 Exam and Roleplay, 2nd Overall
Jessica Fung: Top 10 Exam and Roleplay, 2nd Overall
Tazik Shahjahan: Top 10 Exam and Roleplay, 2nd Overall
Hannah He: Top 10 Exam and Roleplay, 2nd Overall
Jaitra Chaudhuri: Top 10 Exam and Roleplay, 3rd Overall
Saurav Luthra and Aurthy Amaranath: Top 10 Roleplay, 3rd Overall
Ryan Yan: Top 10 Exam and Roleplay
Tom Liu: Top 10 Exam and Roleplay
Mei Yi Niu: Top 10 Exam and Roleplay
Amy Chen: Top 10 Exam and Roleplay
Steven Zhang: Top 10 Roleplay
Helen Lin: Top 10 Roleplay
Cheng Cheng Lin and Maddy Kim: Top 10 Roleplay
Emma Wai and Jessica Zhu: Top 10 Roleplay
Angela Pang and Laura Lu: Top 10 Roleplay
Aiman Altaf: Top 10 Exam
Charmaine Chang: Top 10 Exam
Jenna Wong: Top 10 Exam
Dora Su: Top 10 Exam
Harrison Chiu: Top 10 Exam
Saiyam Patel: Top 10 Exam
Emma Wai: Top 10 Exam
Hargun Kaur: Top 10 Exam
Saurav Luthra: Top 10 Exam
Emily Shen: Top 10 Exam
Alex Guo: Top 10 Exam
Eric Shang: Top 10 Exam
Grace Xiong: Top 10 Exam
