Monday, September 8, 2014

Walking In My Shoes. . .Leadership and the Week Ahead

Last week flew by, given Monday was Labor Day and the Chamber was closed for the day.  So, like you, I tried to fit five days of work into four.  I had meetings every single morning and many others throughout the four-day work week.

A lot of my time was spent planning for this week.  Below is what will occupy most of my time this week:

Board Meetings


I serve as a Board member on several local Board of Directors.  This week, I have The Works Board meeting and the Chamber has our Board meeting this week.  For the Chamber's Board meeting, it is a shortened agenda, since we also have our Board and Staff Retreat immediately following the Board meeting.  This is the first meeting of the fiscal year for us.  In addition to our standard items, we will be adopting a new Financial Resolution, giving fiscal authority to the new officers - Caroline Fraker, Chair; Luke Baus, Chair-Elect and Jim Mitchell, Treasurer.  They are excellent leaders and I look forward to working with them over the next 12 months.  The Board will also be asked to consider endorsing three community levies which include the Children's Services Levy; the Senior Citizens Levy and the Licking County Library Levy.  

Strategic Planning/Board and Staff Retreat


As I mentioned above, we have a Board and Staff Strategic Planning session this week.  Although some might find this as exciting as getting your teeth pulled, I enjoy it.  It energizes me because as a Board of Directors, we get to review the past year.  We have had many successes, but we also weren't able to accomplish everything we planned to get done over the past 12 months.  It is important to do a review before looking forward, in my opinion.  Just because you weren't able to check something off of your to-do list, doesn't mean it is a dead issue.  You may want to considering placing it back on your list, but it may need modified from the previous version. Planning sessions also allow for major creativity, which isn't always the case in standard Board meetings, when the focus isn't necessarily on planning. I will be sharing our road map with the membership next month.

Community Leadership of Licking County


September of each year marks the first class of our Community Leadership of Licking County program.  The Chamber has been operating this program for close to 30 years and have graduated over 600 leaders throughout our county.  Participants will learn a great deal about themselves and their leadership skills, talents and styles, as well as become educated about all the wonderful assets Licking County has to offer that they may never have known.  I am the Director of this program and truly enjoy getting to know a new class of leaders each fall.  Look for updates and photos throughout the year on our Facebook page, twitter feed (@ChamberofC) or on LinkedIn.

Have a great week!

As always, please feel free to contact me anytime at the Chamber 740-345-9757 x5 or email chottinger@lickingcountychamber.com.  Please follow us on Twitter - @ChamberofC and @Chambercheri.


No comments: