Chapter Leadership Days 2006

It’s time to plan for this year’s premier Chapter leadership event

Who: Current and incoming chapter presidents, Council reps, and any members involved with or interested in leadership.

When: Thursday afternoon and all day Friday, October 19-20, 2006

Where: DoubleTree Hotel O’Hare, Rosemont, Ill.

MRCs: 6

The 2006 CLDs start off with a bang at noon on Thursday, and you’ll want to be there at the beginning, when acclaimed volunteer trainer Jill McCrory of Leadership Outfitters kicks things off with a rousing, 31/2-hour workshop on a topic near and dear to all chapter leaders: “Finding, Involving, and Rewarding Chapter Leaders and Volunteers.”

In this highly interactive kickoff session, Jill will engage chapter leaders in exploring how to find and develop leaders, increase member and leader involvement, how communication plays a role in the retention of leaders and volunteers, and how association and chapter missions, values and key messages influence the process. The workshop will look like this (with appropriate breaks built in):

Finding and Developing New Leaders:
Participants will explore the characteristics they are looking for in leaders and how to identify potential new leaders at chapter events and activities. Jill will share and give you the opportunity to share from the chapter level tools and techniques for developing and mentoring leaders.

Understanding, Involving, and Communicating with Volunteers:
Today’s ASHI chapter leaders must function together in an ever-changing partnership. Learning to understand each other and communicate with different styles is key to a fully functioning leadership and chapter volunteer team. In this session, ASHI chapter leaders will identify their predominant behavior style(s), learn how these affect communication with others, and learn how to avoid conflict. Techniques will be shared for working more effectively with those who have different styles. Creative team activities will help illustrate how to deal with different behavior styles as they show up during team projects.

In a segment on involvement, Jill will focus on how to further involve leaders and get new members connected through discovering their skills and talents, matching talents to specific tasks, and asking for participation in the R.I.G.H.T. way. Using mind-mapping techniques, participants will have the opportunity to plan and place volunteers in a mock activity that will illustrate how a committee or special event task force can implement the technique at the chapter level.

Understanding what key messages your chapter is sending can give chapter leaders a vivid picture of why members will or will not get involved as volunteers or take on leadership roles. You will examine organizational missions and values and how these affect the involvement process. Participants will have the opportunity to explore how some corporate “key messages” affect consumer “involvement” and how their approaches can be applied to ASHI’s chapters. 

Recognizing and Rewarding Volunteers: 
In this final segment, chapter leaders will discover how important recognition is to retaining leaders and volunteers. Participants will build over 100 ideas in less than 5 minutes, and receive an idea list of ways to reward and thank volunteers in a variety of ways.

Jill McCrory brings a background of interactive training, teambuilding and leadership training to the Leadership Outfitters team. Formerly Senior Director of Training at the National Association of Home Builders, she worked with national association leaders and their chapters on leadership development, volunteer management, membership and presentation skills. At Leadership Outfitters, she is known for her creative approach to team building and a philosophy of “leadership at all levels.” She currently is a member and frequent presenter at American Society of Association Executives and the Center for Association Leadership events, and currently serves on the Leader-ship Council for the Greater Washington Network. A native Washingtonian, she is the recipient of the International Leadership Medal from Lions Clubs International and is presently earning a Masters of Theology at the John Leland Seminary. To find out more about Jill and Leadership Outfitters, visit www.leadershipoutfitters.com.