The ONE Community has created brilliant materials to be used in presenting workshops, available exclusively to ONE Community Members. ONE Community Member Ken Byler, from Pennsylvania, sent this inspiring dispatch, immediately following the April 6th. official launch day for ONE, which I now share with you. Thanks for inspiring us Ken.
“On April 6 I held my first ONE Workshop at a local restaurant and conference center. Sixteen leaders from my community attended representing large and small organizations, including some non-profits (my church sent three members of our ministry team). My three-hour format was announced, and prepared for, before I received the facilitator guidebook so there wasn’t adequate time to “dig deep” into all of the CASTLE Principles. I was able to include some interactive sharing times and used the Workbook questions to encourage everyone to identify the times in their lives when they were Courageous, Authentic, Serving, etc. The response to the event was overwhelmingly positive and I am gratified that the message of ONE struck a chord, as I intuitively knew it would. The participants asked me to organize a follow-up event where they can gather again to share their perspectives about the book and to discuss how they are practicing the CASTLE Principles in their own lives. That will likely happen in early May.
Among the evaluation comments was this note: “Your authenticity makes you an effective presenter.” Needless to say that was a wonderful gift to me. While I have much to learn, and changes to make in my workshop format, this group of leaders is committed to the message of ONE. Their organizations represent nearly 2,000 employees/stakeholders. If they begin to spread the message effectively it will have quite an impact.
I am deeply grateful to Lance, to the Secretan Center staff, and to every member of the ONE Community for your contributions these past weeks as I prepared for yesterday’s event. I am anxious to hear your stories as well.”
Ken, wonderful news and I’m so pleased your first presentation was so well recieved. Today, I did my first presentation (and thankfully I was able to make use of the facilitator’s guide…so thank you all who developed it) and I’m delighted with the response.
It was a real exercise in courage as I admit that I did the “will I, won’t I?” routine. When the sheduled speaker was unavailable, it was left to me to come up with a speaker. My presentation was to the Regional Director’s Team , about 30 managers and 3 chaplains, in our Australian aged care service. Although we are a church-based organisation, people found it liberating to speak about love and service, and courage, truthfulness, autehnticity and effectiveness. One of the participants told me that he had never seen the level of intimacy between the group that resulted from the sharing. It was a real breakthrough for the group and for me personally, and it moves or organisation forward in our development of a person-centred leadership and management model.
It’s been a good day … and I will enjoy the fruits of this day.
Carol Hugginson
Carol, thanks so much for this post and your good news. I hope that many more opportunities ike this occur for you. Isn’t it wonderful to see the seeds of many months of work finally come to fruition? Continued success to you. With love, Namaste. Lance.