Blog Archives
Badge: Tribes (revised)
The Adult Enrichment Project is designed to work as a tribe. Everyone is encouraged to do as much as they wish and to help others on their path. So, let’s learn about tribes and the tribes you belong to and why.
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Steps
1. Tribes.
Obtain a copy of “Tribes” by Seth Godin. Check it out at the library or purchase a copy. Audio book companies such as audible.com offer a free book to try their service. Read or listen to the book and find out about tribes.
You can also check out TED Talks and YouTube for Seth’s presentations about tribes.
2. Tribes Casebook.
sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/10/free-tribes-ebo.html
Members of Seth Godin’s tribe put together a casebook. It is a PDF available for free download on the Web. While Seth speaks more in generalities and gives some examples of tribes, this casebook is about numerous tribes and gives you a better idea of tribes that exist and how they work.
3. Are you a heretic?
Heretics are engaged, passionate, and more powerful and happier than everyone else. And they have a tribe that they support (and that supports them in turn).
Challenging the status quo requires a commitment, both public and private. It involves reaching out to others and putting your ideas on the line. (Or pinning your Ninety-five Theses to the church door.)
Heretics must believe. More than anyone else in an organization, it’s the person who’s challenging the status quo, the one who is daring to be great, who is truly present and not just punching a clock who must have confidence in her beliefs.
. The Elements of Leadership
- Leaders challenge the status quo.
- Leaders create a culture around their goal and involve others in that culture.
- Leaders have an extraordinary amount of curiosity about the world they’re trying to change.
- Leaders use charisma (in a variety of forms) to attract and motivate followers.
- Leaders communicate their vision of the future.
- Leaders commit to a vision and make decisions based on that commitment.
- Leaders connect their followers to one another. Sorry for the alliteration, but that’s the way it worked out.
If you consider the leaders in your organization or community, you’ll see that every one of them uses some combination of these seven elements. You don’t have to be in charge or powerful or pretty or connected to be a leader. You do have to be committed.
Excerpted from TRIBES: WE NEED YOU TO LEAD US by Seth Godin, Copyright (c) Do You Zoom, Inc., 2008.
4. Your tribe(s).
You already belong to tribes, though you might not realize it. One purpose for AEP is to give youth group volunteers additional knowledge to use and share with their kids. If you’re volunteering for a youth group, that’s one of your tribes.
Also look through your mail and email to see what groups you belong to. What Yahoo! Groups do you subscribe to? What magazines do you purchase? What charities do you support? All of these are tribes. They give you a sense of belonging and purpose.
5. You don’t have to lead.
While you were looking at your tribes, did you notice that some of them you are passionate about? Perhaps you started one or helped to get one started where you faithfully keep up-to-date on happenings. Then there are the emails you completely read, the postings you look forward to when you get off work and the magazine that makes you put aside your chores for the afternoon. Some you might do because you feel obligated to do so. Some you sign up for because you’re interested in one element only and most of the tribe’s undertakings do not interest you.
Each one of these tribes gives you something different. You choose to participate as much as you want and how you want. Think about your level of involvement and how it relates to your interest in each tribe.
6. What are your passions?
Everyone has something they are passionate about. Make a list. Which of these passions do you feel you might work on to make a difference? Which do you already have a tribe for? Or do you have more than one tribe for your passion?
Post your passions and tribes as part of your “about me” on the Yahoo! Group if you subscribe or at the end of this blog post. These will help us generate ideas for new badge programs.
7. Research tribes.
Investigate and explore tribes available for your passions. Do not limit yourself to your city. Find out what’s in your country, your state, online or the world.
8. Improving exiting tribes.
Choose one of your tribes. How can you improve upon it to make it better? Are you interested in an element that is not currently covered by the tribe? Contribute to the tribe to improve it.
9. Adult Enrichment Project.
We would like the AEP to run as a tribe — everyone contributing as much as they want, volunteering as they want and sharing their skills as they want. Some of the areas you may wish to participate in include administration, creating badge programs, helping others earn badges, taking the programs outside the Web and using them locally, etc.
Read the “What is the AEP?” PDF to find out more about AEP’s vision. Check out our two “AEP specific” badge programs: AEP_Awards and AEP_Innovator. You can find additional PDFs at the AEP Yahoo! Group, Scribd and Google Documents. Search for “AEP.”
Is AEP the place for you? Does this tribe fill one of your passions? Do you have suggestions to make it better?
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Sites to Explore
www.sethgodin.com/sg/
sethgodin.typepad.com
www.audible.com
www.ted.com
www.scribd.com
Badge: Field Trips — Sharing My Community
For younger kids, field trips are normally limited to a day outing including driving time. As kids get older, field trips last longer including cross-state or even cross-country.
Each of us knows our own community. How often have you wanted to do a field trip, but are unaware of what’s outside your community? By sharing your unique community with others, you can provide experiences that visiting troops might miss.
Together, we can provide opportunities for discovery and exploration for our youth and ourselves. Instead of sharing our stories, we’re providing the opportunity for everyone to have the experiences to create their own.
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Steps
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Exploring my community
1. Sharing my community.
You can share your community by photos and information on events and organizations. Start a database, document or folder with information on the events that happen in your community so you can share this information. Include the following:
- Event name
- Dates
- Cost
- Hosting organization
- Location of organization
- Contact information for organization
- Frequency of event (yearly, anytime, etc.)
- Photos available?
- Links for more information
If you have additional ideas for your database such as age limitations, group size, etc. include those as well.
2. Free all the time.
Create a listing of free field trip opportunities in your area that may be arranged at any time. Make sure organizations that have offered free field trips in the past did not do it for a specific group or reason so that anyone may be offered the opportunity. Find out if these organizations are still operating. Share this list with your service unit, council or other groups that would find this information useful.
3. Special events.
Some field trip events are special events. These may happen at parks, orchestras, museums, clubs or businesses. Keep track of events that happen annually or on a regular basis. Share these as they are released.
4. Scheduled events.
Some events need to be scheduled to make sure they have the minimum number of participants. Find events that need to be scheduled and share those. Make sure you note any specific requirements, age limitations, etc.
5. Other events.
Find other events that do not fit into the above categories. Determine if they can or should be shared.
6. Photos.
Take photos of various sites in your community. Highlight those areas that are of interest to tourists and locals. Rename your files so you can quickly identify your community sites.
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Bird’s eye view
7. Determine the area.
You may choose to share your community with other group leaders or a larger group. Decide if your final plan is to cover your city, your county, your state or your council. Can you do this on your own or do you need to recruit help?
8. Sort.
You can sort your area by any of the information in Step 1. Decide if you’ll distribute your information electronically, with printed materials or another means.
9. Printable only.
If you choose to share this only with printable materials (handouts and emailed PDFs), create a template you can share with others so you can combine collected community events into a folder for reference. Determine a way you can notify others about your updates.
10. Private and online.
You may choose to set up an online resource about your community, making it private so only those you invite can join. Discuss this option with others who are sharing their communities.
11. Interactive site.
Create an interactive map of the area you’re covering. Make each area clickable so that it opens a page specifically about an event, city or other smaller area. Provide the information and photos you’ve collected in Steps 1-6. Include links for additional information.
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Beyond sharing
12. Badge programs, individual.
List any badge programs available through the events you list and where you can acquire them. For example, many museums offer badges to participants.
13. Badge programs, clusters.
Find or create badge programs for specific sets of activities or locations. Make groups of them so that the design matches, giving kids the opportunity to “collect them all.”
You might want to do all the camps in your council, the museums in your state, parks in your region, etc. Brainstorm ways to honor kids who acquire all pieces of these badge sets.
For example, Indiana State Parks has a pin program where you can earn a pin at each of the state parks. You have to participate in events, explore the park, etc. Earning all of the pins would be an interesting project for a troop or group.
14. Badge programs, group.
Ask your council to provide a badge program featuring the counties or service areas of your council. This can coincide with an interactive map site (see Step 11). A multi-part badge can highlight areas visited within their council, exploring what the others have to offer.
The supplement for this is listed below. It is a patch program from the Girl Scouts of Northern Indiana-Michiana. It is no longer on their site, so I do not know if it can be earned. It is provided as a sample only of what you can do.
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Expand the experience
15. Create your own, local
Create your own community event. Offer it beyond your organization as a recruitment event or service project.
16. Create your own, wide
Create your own community event, offering it to anyone within your organization. In addition to your own event, provide information about other community offerings that are similar that your participants might be interested in.
17. Social media.
Social media allows you to explore communities and create communities. Find out what social media offers and how you can utilize it to share your community. This might be through photo sites like Flickr, sites like Facebook or even special sites set up by your organization.
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Supplements Available
05_CouncilQuilt_Patch.pdf (For reference only, available on Scribd and Google Documents.)
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