As you know, over my years as a Management Consultant as well as Adjunct Professor I have led a great many strategic planning workshops (or classes of the same). Recently, having divested myself of roles with the local Strata Council and having a congregation I was assisting in their Strategic Visioning decide to go in another direction at the bidding of their minister, I found myself on the Board for an organization called SOPAC II (South Okanagan Performing Arts Centre).

This was an interesting venture as the Board is very small (now only three members as one had to retire due to other commitments) and the previous Board(s) had been working for some twenty-five years within  which time-frame there were nine studies all dealing with a desire to build a proper performing arts facility in Penticton. As we began to examine the current state of ennui and even angst, it became apparent that there had never really been an attempt to start the process right at the beginning — i.e. what does the arts mean for this part of the Okanagan? So we decided to hold a strategic visioning workshop and invite a cross-section of people from the South Okanagan and Similkameen. It would be called the STEP ONE Workshop and we would not constrain the participants in any way other than to ask them to work through the weekend and try to define or resolve the question.

In late October the workshop was held and the Board tasked me with facilitating it. The results of that amazingly successful event can be found at: www.sopac.ca under the News section SOSArts Workshop — Summary Report.

Enjoy…

tnx,

g.w.