***SOLD OUT*** The Leadership Academy ***SOLD OUT***
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Thank you everyone for your interest! This year’s Leadership Academy is SOLD OUT.
If you want to see what awesome stuff you will be missing you can continue to read below.
Thanks again to everyone who signed up and we will be seeing you in October.
Did you miss the opportunity to join this year’s event? Don’t fret just yet. We have a waiting list. If you want to get on the waiting list please send us your details at academy@wvceh.org .
From October 20-22, 2015, at the renowned Stonewall Resort in West Virginia, OrgCode is holding our first ever Leadership Academy on Ending Homelessness. This is a professional goal of mine come true, and I really hope you will attend. You can learn more about it by visiting the OrgCode website: www.orgcode.com
Why did we pull together the Leadership Academy?
One of the major barriers that comes up time and again in our travels is the matter of leadership. This takes many forms, from getting people to gel around a vision to dealing with fractured service responses; from competing understandings of goals to competition in funds and glory; from coaching elected officials to keeping staff going on the work. While we have given a lot of advice on this, we felt we could do a better job bringing people together.
And then there is the “loneliness at the top” phenomenon which is a real feeling. There are a lot of amazing folks out there that are so alone in their respective community that being the leader makes them a target. What they don’t know is that there are a lot of people JUST LIKE THEM in other cities – and even another country – that have the EXACT SAME EXPERIENCE that they do. We wanted to build a community of supports just for leaders.
Why did we decide on West Virginia?
If you only believe the stereotypes of West Virginia I can see your point. Here is the thing: West Virginia is AMAZING! They have natural beauty conducive to the sort of setting that will be helpful for leaders to think, reflect, connect and grow. We did NOT want a major urban location where people would scatter when we were not in session. We wanted a retreat type environment.
There is also the matter of the West Virginia Coalition to End Homelessness. They are helping with logistics and hosts given the academy occurs in their backyard. If you don’t know them, you should. They are change agents in their own right. Plus they are cool cats.
To deal with what may feel like isolation, I am toying with either doing stand up or putting on my musician persona and entertaining people each evening.
Is it worth the price?
In an alternate universe this conference is free and we can invite the people we want to have attend and someone else is going to pick up the tab. But that is not the world we live in. So, there is the matter of cost.
Let me be clear about this (because it has come up): NO ONE IS GETTING RICH OFF OF THIS GATHERING!
Let me be even more clear: THE PROFESSIONAL COSTS OF PUTTING THIS TOGETHER WILL LIKELY SURPASS THE AMOUNT OF MONEY COMING IN!
What will Iain De Jong or OrgCode make off of this? We hope not to lose too much. We hope to at least make the equivalent of our daily professional fees for the three days of the event. All the prep time will likely come at a loss. If it so happens we make some money, we will be sharing that with the West Virginia Coalition to End Homelessness to assist with their change efforts. As the hosts and organizers, they deserve to benefit for their efforts to make this event possible. If we do not make a cent we will still be really happy. I don’t know if you are familiar with one of our four business models: Great Consultants, Lousy Business People.
Also, it would be a mistake to not point out that if 4 or more people from the same organization there is a 25% discount, so long as you register before the end of May.
How did you come up with those topics for the agenda?
I threw darts at a dartboard. Whatever stuck we decided to offer. Kidding.
We focused on the things we thought would be the MOST helpful for leaders from all of our experience and travels. Does that mean every session is going to rock for every participant? We hope so. But I also note as an educator that some material will be more impactful than others depending on your experience and your local circumstances.
What you can count on is really good quality instruction and material. You can count on taking stuff and putting it into effect right away. And you can count on wit and sarcasm. Because, well, look who is leading it.
What does it mean when the promotional material says “Not a Monster Conference”?
We wanted a scale that made sense for networking and connectivity between participants. The format of the training and engagement when it is a room full of leaders is one that lends itself to discussion and reflection in groups. So for instructional reasons we did not want to make the logistics unwieldy or lose the magic of community that comes with a certain scale.
Our original goal was to have 40 people come. That target has been reached. Never in my wildest forecasts did I think we would hit that so soon. Sometimes I wondered if we would reach it at all. If the momentum continues as it has I anticipate shutting down registration if we get much higher than 200 people. I think the likelihood of that happening, though, is wicked small.
If I wanted to know more about how this all came about, who is leading it, or anything like that, where can I look?
We already thought of this. A few weeks ago we put out a backgrounder, which you can find here.