Once Upon a Time

Once Upon a Time, there was an Executive Director named Jenn.  Each July, she provides a little insight to the members on how this gig of Executive Director for IAACE is going.  On July 1st, I have officially been in this position for three years! The good news is I still absolutely love it!  The number one reason, the people (board and members) are awesome. The number two reason the work matters! Education is the key to building a better community. Period. I would also add “end of the story,” but the issue is that we haven’t convinced everyone of that yet.  Let’s educate as many as we can on the need for adult education. It is one of the reasons that I applied for the COABE Advocacy fellowship.  If you haven’t heard yet, yes, I got the fellowship.  We have had a few sessions, including a half-day session in June.  The wealth of information is overwhelming at times.  I’d love to share it all, but I don’t want to overwhelm you. 😉

I’ll share the art of telling a story to advocate because it fits. The 5 tips from my notes:

  1. Use simple language. It should be easy to understand.
  2. Force of Empathy- this helped connect characters to the audience
  3. Back up your story with data- they have to know it matters and affects them
  4. Include a Call to Action- It has to have a purpose!
  5. Tailor your story to your audience- Customization is key!

Here’s the link to the entire article, callhub.io/storytelling-for-advocacy/. Our next fellowship session is not until September, but we are working on building our advocacy toolkit for the Adult Education and Family Literacy Week (September 19th-25th).  I’d love to know what you would put in your toolkit.   We might be able to include that in the conversation on Thursday. In case you haven’t seen it is Christmas in July!  Each year we do something special in July. In 2019 it was a board trivia contest; in 2020, it was a crazy year, so we held some professional development sessions and rolled out a book online club, and this year we have Christmas in July!  The next gift is Thursday, July 22nd at 10:30 am EDT and 9:30 am CDT; we will have the Gift of Advocacy with Rob Moore, IAACE advocacy chair.  You can join us on Zoom with this link at the time. You may join anytime in the hour.   I hope you will join us, and the next gift is July 29th, when Steve Haffner, Conference Keynote, will Zoom in with a sneak peek of his keynote.  You can always find the calendar of events at iaace.com/calendar-of-events/.

I’ll get back to my anniversary story. My goals continue to be to grow membership and your benefits. If you have an idea on how to do that, I’m listening:  email, Google chat me or schedule a Zoom. As your Executive Director, I love that I am learning and growing, building connections and relationships, and always having a lot of fun with my fellow iaace members.  I look forward to the next time I connect with you!  I hope to see everyone at our Fall Conference, September 29, 30, and October 1.

Until then, “keep reaching for the stars.”

!!Christmas in July gift alert!! Email me who is famous for that line, and I’ll send a gift to the first person who gets it correct.

Happy Christmas in July!

Jenn

 

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