Leadership NRV

PURPOSE: The objective of Leadership New River Valley is to assist in the development of community leaders by providing participants from diverse backgrounds with an understanding of the problems, opportunities and issues facing the community. The program will also foster the development of leadership skills and techniques in an environment that encourages the establishment of new relationships and communication networks between the participants.

A friend participated in this program though the MCCC last year and encouraged me to apply. Since I've officially decided that Blacksburg really is home and I plan to stay awhile the promise this program offers of learning about the town and county, meeting key people, honing some buisness skills, and making new friends made it a no brainer for me. The more (or in this case less) I found out about the group, the more I wondered what I'd signed up for :) This past weekend was the kick-off retreat and all those doubts were squelched. I'm very excited about the activities in the coming year.

The group consists of about 25 professionals, all ages, marrital statuses, years in the area, and careers. Some loud and boisterous, others more subdued. I didn't count, but pretty even across genders. Most from Blacksburg/Christiansburg, 2 from Radford, 2 from Roanoke (these two work close by). The weekend retreat really helped jumpstart relationships, I really felt like they were all friends by the time we left. I'm looking forward to building on these friendships throughout the year.

The main event this weekend was SIMSOC. This is a society simulation game. Hard to really go into details. Basically we were broken into different groups of a society and assigned different jobs, then based on 'complex' rules left to fend for ourselves. I was a bit skeptical reading the rules prior to the retreat, it was fun though. Definitely a good activity to jumpstart this group.

Some things outside of 'class' I'll be required to do is attend a town meeting, attend a school board meeting, and participate in a police ride along. I'm really excited to expand my knowledge of what goes on in this place! I'll let you know what I find out :)