Conference 2007 a Success!

The first annual Students for Life of Illinois conference, "Pro-Life: Mission Possible," was a great success!  There were around 70 in attendance and they loved the world class speakers.  The conference kicked off with a Keynote address by Joe Scheidler of the pro-life action league.  He shared his experiences with the NOW vs Scheidler law suit.  Although it seemed impossible, he won the law suit this year after 21 years in the courts and three visits to the supreme court.  Peter Breen, director of Woman's Choice Services, served as the MC throughout the day and gave updates on what has been going on in Aurora between talks.We had six breakout speakers on various topics.  These included sessions on leadership, post abortion healing, student activism, fund raising, the culture of death and pro-life politics.  After the conference I received an email from C.J., a student from NIU.  He said"Overall I thought the conference was great.  The way the speakers focused their presentations and talks in a way that appealed to college students helped me gain a better understanding and kept my attention.  I also believe we received background on a variety of topics, from those close to home (the Aurora PP), the history behind the movement (Joe), and the small break-out groups gave us the opportunity to explore different topics concerning the pro-life movement.Personally, I'd like to get something going here at Newman and I would love to ask any of the speakers to come and present, because they were amazing.  Great job putting this together!  It helped me get interested in the movement, taught me a lot that I didn't know, and gave me information that I could give to those interested."Overall the conference was a great success!  In addition to equiping and encouraging students to build a culture of life, we also recruited 7 students for leadership positions.  This will help us to increase our effectiveness.  We are very excited about the new officers!