Keeping The Connection

The Challenge Program, Inc. has the goal to connect businesses and education each year. As with everything in life, there are always things that have worked and things that have not worked perfectly. Both of those things need to be discussed and new goals need to be set. This is exactly what happened at an 8 hour staff meeting last Friday in the office.

It is not too often that everyone is in one room together since the program managers are always out and about trying to connect with schools and businesses. So, having everyone together is already the start of a successful day. Now you may think after a few hours there would be nothing left to talk about, but when there are six committed people striving to connect 100 schools with business across Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia counties, there are always things that need to be discussed.

July 1st is the program's own New Years Day since it marks the end of the past school year and starts the planning for the next.The meeting centered around ideas to enhance business and education partnerships. The staff spent hours creating new ways to focus for the 2017-18 school year.

As a participant in the meeting you see a lot of different opinions and ideas shooting from one side of the table to the other. Eventually, out of all of these ideas comes one really fantastic one and, almost like magic, there is a plan set in place. It really is interesting to see the way these women handle the meetings considering the yelling, kicking and screaming that occurs at other businesses' staff meetings while they all fight to be in charge. In these meetings one person speaks at a time, everyone listens, and everyone contributes.

The day was spent around a conference table complete with a heat radiating projector, slideshow, cookies, coffee, charts, surveys, calendars, and spreadsheets. The good news is that the day went by quickly, goals were set, and students will continue to be provided with great opportunities from their business partners.