By Errol Mazursky | Executive Director
For over 10 years the Environmental Leadership Program has trained emerging and innovative environmental and social change leaders to become more effective at creating positive change within their organizations and the communities they serve.
In 2011, ELP welcomed its 500th Fellow to our growing network and with it came the idea to harness our visionary thinking for collective action. Our Senior Fellows (graduates) Program has provided continued learning opportunities over the years; however, we have never created an event to bring Fellows and Board Trustees together to create a strategic process of what we can achieve together.
Eighty members of the ELP Community, including 39 from our New England-Greater Boston Regional, gathered for Creating our Future Together, a 3 day retreat held October 14-16, 2011 at the Appalachian Mountain Club’s Highland Retreat Center in Crawford Notch, NH. The goal of the retreat was to expand Fellows’ professional networks, offer opportunities for career development through peer lead sessions and most importantly to create a 20-year strategic process for what this dynamic network of action oriented leaders can achieve through partnerships and collaborations.
The weekend began with a series of community building activities followed by the launch of ELP’s LEAD Speaker Series (Leadership in Environment And Diversity) that featured Senior Fellows Phil Silva Crashing the Gateway: The Ecology of Organized Crime in the NY/NJ Harbor Estuary; Samir Doshi Bridging Cultural Divides: The Great Work Ahead; Kimaada Le Gendre My personal journey from Ad Exec to Environmental Entrepreneur; and Holmes Hummel On a scale that matters, In a time frame that makes a difference. The LEAD talks were thought provoking, inspiring and empowering - collectively setting the tone for the weekend’s work.
On Saturday morning, eight Fellows co-lead six sessions on a diverse range of topics including: Women’s Leadership, Sustainability in Higher Education, Green Building and Design, Disruptive Innovation, Water/Energy Nexus of Fracking and Corporate/Non-Profit Partnerships. The breakout sessions provided opportunities for Fellows to delve deeper into subject areas they had expertise in as well as broaden their knowledge of environmental issues.
Saturday afternoon was dedicated to open space both literally and figuratively. Participants continued to strengthen their networks and their ties to nature while on guided hikes in the White Mountains lead by Appalachian Mountain Club guides. Additionally, open space sessions were held in the late afternoon with topics ranging from Personal Leadership to Mobilizing Volunteer Services for Community Mapping.
On Saturday evening, Senior Fellow Kristen Sykes shared her expertise as a certified beer judge and introduced attendees to intricacies of New England brews. It was a wonderful opportunity for participants to learn about the art of crafting beers. The local beer tasting was followed up by an impromptu skills auction where individuals were asked to donate their skills or other resources. Items auctioned ranged from day-long sailing trips on hand made boats to campaign strategy planning sessions. In the end, the auction generated $10,000 for the continued development of ELP’s Senior Fellowship Programming.
Sunday was dedicated to the development of a 20-year strategic process for ELP’s Senior Fellowship Program. There were three specific components of the process: the creation of vision statements, the creation of 2-year metrics and the development of 2-quarter actions.
Fellows were divided into groups of 10 and asked to write down their vision statements of what ELP’s Senior Fellowship Program would look like, sound like, feel like in 2031 and 2-year metrics that would indicate we were on the path to bring them to fruition: essentially, what could this growing community of visionary leaders do collectively and what would the steps be to get us there. The result of this exercise was creation of 69 vision statements and 59 2-year metrics posted around the room on flipchart paper. Participants next did a gallery walk of the generated ideas paying particular attention to those that resonated most with them. Following the gallery walk, people self-organized around the ideas they would like to work on – creating list of 2-quarter actions that could fulfill the 2-year metrics. By the end of the morning 12 specific actions were created that retreat participants wanted to work on (see attached for details) including:
As a direct result of the All Community Retreat, ELP now enjoys a robust social media presence with the new Twitter Hashtag #Elpnet and active Facebook Group https://www.facebook.com/ELPnet which is being lead by the 5 member social media team created in New Hampshire; the “Make that Money” group has had one successful conference call and another one scheduled; the Self-Sustained New England Regional Network Group has their first planning call scheduled for November 10th and the Reach Out to New Audiences Group is generating new recruitment leads for ELP’s 2012 Fellowship Classes. Additionally, to help support the creative energy and collaborative potential within its Network, ELP has been invited to submit two new proposals to re-launch its Innovative Grants Program.
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