Leadership Development Workshops and Retreats —
One Size Doesn’t Fit All
By Bob Cox, LocSec, Piedmont Area Mensa
Reprinted from the July 2009 InterLoc
LDWs come in different formats to suit the circumstances. Held on a variety of topics, there is one at every Annual Gathering. Full weekend Regional LDWs are held around the country all the time. The purpose of an LDW is to educate members about the different aspects of running a Mensa Local Group. There are sessions for Editors, Public Relations Coordinators and Membership Officers. Topics include Getting People Involved, Hotel Negotiations, What the National Office Can Provide, Dealing with Problem Members, etc.
We also have one-day Retreats. Their purpose is to get the members of a Local Group, working together as a team, to identify areas where the Local Group could improve, then to set goals and decide how to meet them. A Retreat is not an inferior substitute for an LDW. It complements it.
A few months ago, Piedmont Area Mensa (PAM), a Local Group of 200 members scattered around "The Upstate" of South Carolina, held its second Retreat. I invited over 30 members to attend. With cancellations and no-shows, we started the Retreat with 19 members, including two from a nearby group.
During the week before the event, we gave or sent a packet to all registrants. It contained a cover letter, directions with a map to the venue, a program outline, our Local Group bylaws, and a Retreat Planning Guide.
The Retreat Planning Guide — which can be obtained from the National Office or downloaded — is the basis of the program. It breaks the activities of a Local Group into seven areas such as Newsletter and Web Page, Community Involvement, and Membership Services. Under each activity it describes what a Local Group does as a Major Investment, a Solid Investment, and an Inadequate Investment. Registrants filled out a worksheet evaluating our group in each of these areas, listing our Strengths and Challenges.
After breakfast, we started by rewriting PAM’s Purpose Statement, which now reads:
To promote a positive welcoming Mensa presence in ‘the upstate.’
To engage in activities that utilize intelligence for the benefit of our community.
To provide a stimulating social environment for members, guests and visitors.
We then worked on the seven areas of operation, listing our strengths and challenges in each area. Although PAM is a very active group, we found a number of areas for improvement.
In our final session, after lunch, we decided which areas needed the most attention and what we needed to accomplish in each area. Although our newsletter has several regular contributors, we felt that we needed more members contributing. On our Web site, we wanted more information and links, as well as a secure forum. We also proposed an increase in community activities, to appoint a PR Coordinator and to have a Gifted Children Program.
We concluded the Retreat at 4:30 pm. Everybody felt that it was a day well-spent and that we’d accomplished a lot.
In seven weeks following the Retreat:
• Our Web site has been upgraded with more links and more information, including our bylaws.
• We have had a number of members submit material to our newsletter. These include a poem, a puzzle, a recipe, and a letter to the editor.
• We have appointed a team of PR Coordinators who have started work.
• We have formed a Gifted Children Task Force, which will establish the GC program.
I encourage you to check out the Retreat Planning Guide on the American Mensa Web site and to sell your ExComm on the program. Funding for a Retreat can be obtained from your RVC or from American Mensa’s budgeted "LDW funds."
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