 Hey, good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for joining us once again. We are here for the workshop creating successful leadership transition, and we have one of our own JT Aldridge with us today, which will go over this workshop and presentation with you, just a few quick reminders that we can't see you, so if you're raising your hand or waving at us, my apologies on that. Please be using the chat if you want any comments on there. Right under that is the questions tab. So be sure to place your questions on there, and then the third one, JT does have two poll questions, so he'll put those on there. Just kind of watch for the red button, or for the red dot on it, so that you'll remember to go back in there and he'll remind you about that, okay? All right, JT, I'll leave it to you. Go ahead and let him know who you are as well. All right, thank you Brenda. How do y'all? Great afternoon. I hope that you have enjoyed the conference so far, and learned a few things that you can take back along the way. So as Brenda said, I am JT Aldridge, and I'll be your host for this workshop today, creating successful leadership transitions. And I want to start off with just a little bit about me and sort of why me for this presentation or this workshop. So the first thing that I would tell you about myself is that I'm a Christian, and in fact in my local church, I am a non-vocational pastor, so that's just a fancy way of saying that I'm a volunteer pastor. I don't get paid and it's not my full-time job, and I'll tell you what my full-time job is. A few bullets down, but I'm a husband of the lovely Mrs. Aldridge for 18 years now, and we have three lovely children. So I get to be a father to a 13-year-old, an 11-year-old, and a 6-year-old. And I love every minute of it. We spend a lot of our time traveling around to volleyball games and practices and Boy Scout, campouts and meetings, and of course all of our church activities, so we're your typical busy family five, and I am in just by the way, I am in the city of Fort Worth, so I am a professional engineer, and my specialization or the area that I focus on is reconstructing streets and roadways and, you know, sidewalks and curb ramps and things like that, and I love I love doing that because it makes our community a better place, and I really, I really love being a part of that. I feel like, you know, a brand new street and brand new sidewalks really brings up the curb appeal of any neighborhood, so I love getting to be an engineer and work on streets and proof streets all around the city of Fort Worth, and I'm also a vice president of education of my Longhorn Toastmasters Club, that's a local club in Fort Worth, and you can even go online and look us up, and that's actually how I became, how I was asked through my Toastmasters involvement to present today's workshop, so you'll see the presentation, you know, is branded with Toastmasters International, and if you don't know about Toastmasters, I'll tell you just two things. There's two primary goals of Toastmasters, the organization, and it is to improve public speaking skills, like what I'm doing right now, and to increase confidence in public speaking, and so for me, I've been involved for almost four years, and my skill in speaking publicly and my confidence is just sore, skyrocketed in the three or four years that I've been involved with Toastmasters, so I love it, that's how I got involved with NUSA today, and I highly recommend that if it's something that you're interested in, in improving your your communication skills, and especially just getting more comfortable speaking in front of people, I recommend it. So the last couple items there, you can see, and you can tell I'm a pretty busy guy, but the last couple items there, if I have any time left, and when I do have some free time, those are the things that I love to do just for me. I love doing yourself projects around the house. I love maintaining the yard, and just taking care of the house. I'm always fixing furniture that's been broken by the kids, or some other toys that have been broken, so tinkering around in the yard, and in the garage, and just around the house, and doing all kinds of little projects. You know, light switches, and fans, and a little bit of plumbing, I mean, I like to do a little bit of everything, and I'm a huge football fan, and in the summer, or in the fall, and in the wintertime, you will generally find me on Sunday afternoons watching the NFL football games, so I love doing that. And the reason that I believe that I can share some good tips with you today is because of the last 15 years or so of my life, I've held many volunteer positions in my church, and with Boy Scouts of America, and in the Toastmasters Club that I mentioned. So I think that I've had, I've had lots of transitions in leadership, where I've been transitioning into, or I've been transitioning out of a leadership position in these various organizations. So I'll share some stories with you today, hopefully, as long as we have some time. So we're going to follow this outline today, and so I do want to remind you, and Brenda mentioned this earlier, if you have a question, specifically a question, use the question feature, you know, instead of the chat, try to use the question feature and type your question in there, and you can do that anytime. So as I'm talking along, if you have a question, go ahead and type it in there, and then when we come to the end of the workshop, we'll have time for Q&A, and we'll go through those questions, and we'll make sure that we answer all of them that way we capture everything there. But also feel free to chat, chat it up in the chat function while I'm talking. Don't expect me to be paying attention to the chat the whole time. I'm pretty well focused right here on talking to you, but I will look back over the chat. I would love for you to, if something I say resonates with you, I'd love for you to just chat it in there at that point in time, and I'll go back and look at the comments later, or if something is unclear, or if I could do a better job of explaining something, put it in there for me. I would, I love feedback. That's another big thing about Toastmasters. I love to get feedback because I want to improve and I want to do better. So while we are on the subject a little bit of the virtual meeting room here, I want you to go ahead and look at the files feature. So I put some files in there for you. And the first one, this one I actually want you to go and download right now. It's called takeaways. It's titled takeaways. On mine at least it's at the very bottom. I guess it's in alphabetical order. It's not even alphabetical. I'm not sure what it is, but it's called takeaways. Download that. So I made it. I made it. It just, it looks, it looks kind of like this. And you can download that and you can take some notes. So it's got a space for you to type in your notes. It's a PDF and you can download a computer and you type in some notes, your top three takeaways while I'm talking today. So you got a place to capture your notes. And then it's also got a handful of questions on the bottom of it. And that's something that I'm going to talk about. It's one of my tips that I'll offer you. And so I've got it printed there already. So you've got an easy download that you can save for that. So go ahead and do that as I keep kind of moving along. All right. So now we're going to go, we're going to start off with just a fun poll, just to have a little bit of fun. So I want to just get some feedback from you and just kind of figure out who's, who's listening. And I want to know what best describes your role in your organization. Now we're going to have fun with this. I'm going to turn the, I'm going to turn the poll on. So just have fun with this. Remember, I told you that I'm a, I'm a pastor. So I got a little biblical reference here for you. And so just pick one of these answers. It doesn't have to be perfect. It doesn't matter if none of them fits you. Pick one that describes you now, one that you hope describes you in the future, or one that, that maybe describes you in the past that, that you can say, oh, okay, I was, I have experience with this. So go over to the poll feature and if it hopefully it lit up with a little red, a little red dot and you'll see the question there. And you just click on the answer, the one that, that best, best describes you. So I've got, you can see I'm there, you know, I've got the Moses leader. So Moses in the Bible was this great, long time, super successful leader. And in this case, we're going to, we're going to say Moses is the outgoing leader. So maybe that's you in your organization, maybe you've been, you've been there for, for decades or just many, many years and you are ready to transition out, you know, you're ready to be an outgoing member or leader. And maybe that describes you. And so that's fine, you know, put that there. I think all of us aspire to be the Moses leader, but also maybe you're Joshua, maybe you're an incoming leader, you're relatively new. So in the Bible, Joshua took over from Moses and Joshua was trained very well by Moses. In fact, for many years, Joshua was training underneath Moses and learning. So when Joshua became the leader, it was not a surprise. He was ready for it. He was full of confidence and he was ready to take it on. So maybe that describes you. So that's okay. That's a great one. Now they got the King Saul leader. This is one where, you know, we have a little fun with this. King Saul in the Bible was unsuccessful. He was not a great leader. He was the first king of Israel and he actually was, was basically forced out and the kingship was taken away from him and given to someone else. And from that point on, King Saul was jealous. And in fact, he tried to kill this successor many times. So, you know, I hope that's not you. And so far, I don't see anybody voting on that one. So that's good. But you may, you may, you know, you may know of someone like that, someone who's been forced out. You may have seen this before in the past, someone who is maybe voted out, not reelected and they can become jealous. So and then the last leader, the last vote there that you can make is the Gideon leader. So Gideon in the Bible was a guy who was, was hiding and when he was, when he was approached to be the leader to step up, he protested and he resisted and he hesitated and he asked for several signs and he wanted to be sure. So basically he just was full of low confidence. He didn't think that he could do it. He thought he was from the smallest, the least important clan and the least important tribe of the whole nation. And he just didn't feel like he was the right person. And you know, maybe that's you or again, maybe you've experienced that with someone or you felt like that before. Gideon, you know, was not prepared to be a leader yet and he was sort of thrust into it. And that could be you. So all right, most, most people, I'm sure you can see the results. Most, most of the results are long time outgoing leaders. All right. So that's, that's kind of good because it gives me an idea of, you know, most of you are outgoing leaders or you're, you're preparing to transition out. So I'll see if I can, if I can, you know, talk to you a little bit as, as the audience today. So all right, here's the meat of today's workshop. This is what you came for. We're going to talk about the three phases of leadership transition, the how to have a good ending with the outgoing leader, how to have a smooth handoff, and how to have a powerful beginning with the new incoming leader. And the objectives today, here's the thing, the number one thing that I hope today, I hope that you're able to take away at least one tip that you can implement immediately. I think you'll be able to do that. I think there's something here for everybody today. And the other thing that I want you to notice as I talk through these tips is that planning ahead is, is crucial. And in fact, I really believe if you don't plan ahead for, for a leadership transition, it can be detrimental to your organization. And I don't want that to happen to you. So you came here today to learn about creating successful leadership transitions. So that's where we're going to focus on tips to, to help you have success in your leadership transitions. We keep moving along here. All right. So a group project. Now, I want to know how you felt when you first saw those words pop up on the screen group project, or maybe back when you were back when you were in school and in high school or in college or in some trainee class and they said, all right, we have a group project. I want to know how did you feel? So this is another poll. Go to your poll feature. I've turned on another poll for you. And I want to know, were you excited? Or are you terrified? Hey, there's no right or wrong answer there. Just you're you're you're excited. You're that kind of person. Oh, yes, we get to work together. I get to talk to other people and interact. Or you're, you're that, oh, man, you know, your shoulders kind of slumped and you're like, Oh, seriously, a group project, you know, you might be thinking it's Friday afternoon and it's almost four o'clock and I've been at this conference for several days and you know, I'm just, I'm ready to be done. I'm tired of talking to people, whatever it was, just type it in there. Again, we just have a little fun with these polls. I love that we have this access to take the polls. So I'm just curious to see, all right, man, a lot of you are excited. Well, like it or not, what what I'm about to say, it looks like most of you are going to like what I'm about to say that we're not actually doing a group project. That was just a test with you. I want you to think about community leadership is a group project. Right. And I know you all know that so it is it is just like a group project. It takes lots of people, it takes a community, right? It takes multiple people to pull off and to handle, you know, community leadership. So in the same way that community leadership is like a group project, I want to talk today like leadership transition is like a relay race. Alright, so you're going to see that theme in the next couple of slides. It's like a relay race. So so transitioning leadership in your organization is just like a relay race. If you think about it, no one member of a relay race can finish the race by himself. Right. It takes a team, it takes multiple people and they take the baton and they hand the baton one person to the next person. And each of them runs their race, right, they run their leg of the race, and then they pass the baton off. And they can encourage and support the rest of the runners, but they're not the focal point anymore. And they're not running the finish in that race. So as we move into, all right, so yeah, most of you, most of you checking the poll responses, most of you are excited about group projects. That's probably a good thing. You're happy about it. So we're going to get into, I'll just leave that one open. You can keep going on it. Where you get into the first phase, right, the first phase of leadership transitions, which is a good ending with the outgoing leader. And our first tip today is celebrate the good. So here's the thing, if you're the outgoing and you're an outgoing leader, I want you to affirm and celebrate the value of your organization. All right. I want you to be sure that you know why is your organization valuable to your community? You know, you're the, you're the spokesperson, right, for your, if you're a leader, you're the spokesperson for your organization, your community. And you need to, you need to know what's good. So think about it like this. You might ask yourself the question, if our organization didn't exist at all, what would the community be missing out on? You know, what is it? And if you answer that question and you come up with a handful of things, you know, these, these are the things the community would be missing out on, then that's, that's the good stuff that you do. That's the value that you bring to the community. And so you want to talk about that and you've got to share that with others. You've got to, you've got to put that out there, right? So you want to celebrate the good. So I can, I can recall a transition that I made when I was becoming a deacon at my church and the leader before me, he was, he was the Moses kind of leader. He was awesome. He was amazing. He was well spoken. He was a strong leader and he was, he was stepping down after several years of leading the deacon, the deacon ministry in our church. And he did an excellent job of this, of celebrating the good, always reminding us as, as deacons, always reminding our group of, of the good things that we did for the church, you know, always bringing up every meeting and every email, always putting something out there. This is, this is what we do. This is the value that we bring to our church. And he just, he just did an excellent job of it. And in fact, you know, if, if you're very familiar with the Bible, you also know that Moses in the Bible did an excellent job of this as well. He constantly reminded the Israelites, the Israel people that of all the good things that God had done for them, all of the wonderful things he had brought them out of slavery and helped them cross the Red Sea. And you know, he was constantly reminding them of the good. The next one is, maybe it's my most exciting tip for the day, document roles and responsibilities. Now, it's, it's about, it's about as exciting as it sounds right there on the screen. I know this is, this is not the most fun thing to do. But as an outgoing leader, you're in the best position to document. And I mean, write down or type it up in a Word document, exactly what it is that you do, right? So if you're, if you're, what your role is, what your responsibility is with the organization. And this is something I've got some examples for you. If you go to the files section. So if you were there earlier, you saw there was, there was several files in there. And I've got some examples from Toastmasters from our local club of things like the president and the vice president and the secretary and treasurer. And those are some great examples of a place to start of, you know, the role and the responsibility for each of those positions. This is something great that you can simply hand out to people, because one of the first things all your volunteers are going to ask is, well, what's involved in that? Or, you know, what's expected of me if I do that? So this is a critical step in setting the expectations for any new or incoming leader that may come in the future. So you definitely need to sit down. And I told you earlier, I'm going to talk about planning ahead. This is one of those planning ahead things you have to plan ahead to make this happen. Because this is, it takes time. It takes time to think through what you do. I did this also when I was on the deacon ministry, and we didn't have anything documented. And I sat down and I did this very thing. We had, we had three officer positions. And I typed it up into a document. What was the responsibility of each of the positions? Because I was asked multiple times by, by other deacons, what exactly, you know, if I get elected secretary, what do I have to do? You know, what's expected of me? And so I realized, like, this needs to be written down and typed up so I can just hand it to him and say, this is it. So next tip, are you an overly generous giver, you know, somebody who, who helps everyone else and helps meet everyone else's needs and then never asks for what you really need? Well, if you're thinking, yeah, stop it. All right, just stop. You could be so much more productive if you, if you would say no from time to time, or if you will ask for the help that you need, you could be so much more productive, right? I show this to you because, you know, there's research that shows that people will only help you if you ask, right? So if you're an outgoing leader and you're looking for new volunteers and new, new leaders and people to step up, I really will ask you, I mean, think hard about, have you actually asked for help or asked for new leaders? Now, I got a couple things, points I'll make on this. And so one is, you got to do it the right way. So if you send out a newsletter or a blast email to all of your members and say, you know, we sure need somebody to take up secretary role, that's not the right way to ask. So that's not the kind of ask I'm talking about. You will get far better results asking someone one on one or face to face. And I know that's harder. I know it's so much easier to put it in your email and just hope that somebody responds. But the statistics show that most of the time, people will not show up to help you unless you ask, right? They can see that you're buried and they will just kind of walk on and assume that, well, you must like it that way or you got it. So so ask for help. Here's another thing is go back. So these workshops from the whole conference, they're going to be on demand. Go back and watch one. It was called volunteer recruitment and retention. So it was, it was, I don't know, it was this morning. Go find that one. They talk about this whole point about how to, how to recruit new volunteers and they got some great examples and some great strategies for doing that. So I encourage you to go find that workshop and it was from Linda and Nikki and they were from Boise. And so they did a great job. I loved it and they, they can, they can really dive deep on this point right here. How to ask for new leaders. All right. So let's keep on moving a smooth handoff. So when I talk about the handoff, I want to, I want to kind of set it up for you. I'm talking about a window of time. So when, when there's actually a transition that's going to happen now. So there's a, there's an outgoing leader and a new incoming leader. And within a few weeks of that official transition date, you need to schedule a meeting between the outgoing and the incoming leader. So this is something that I have experienced both on the good side of having a meeting in my, again, in my beacon transitions. When I was transitioning into chairman of the beacons, I met with the outgoing chairman. And likewise, when I transitioned out of being the chairman, I met with the incoming chairman and those, those face-to-face meetings were invaluable. And it's, it's a simple, I mean, you can have a schedule a lunch with them during the week or breakfast on Saturday or coffee on Saturday. There's, there's got to be a time for an hour or two where you can schedule time to sit down, just the two of you, the outgoing and the incoming, to sit down and talk through some things. And so this is, this is kind of where you get to be transparent. So if you're the outgoing leader in this situation, I want you to be, be absolutely transparent with this new incoming leader about what issues and struggles and challenges your organization has faced. So everyone may not know about these, these issues or these challenges. There may be some things that, you know, that have been kept amongst maybe the leadership team and don't want the incoming leader to be blindsided by something like this. So share the situation, share what's, share what's going on or share something that, that, that you haven't finished yet. Maybe your organization's been working towards something and it's not completed yet. And so be sure you share that as the outgoing leader, because you're going to, you're letting the incoming leader know what's important, right, to the organization. It goes back a little bit to celebrating the good. But, but at the same time here, sometimes I know some things are not necessarily good. So be willing to share that. And if you're the incoming leader here, again, be transparent and be willing to say, you know, I don't know everything. I, I don't have knowledge of this or I'm concerned about my lack of knowledge of something. And so be willing to say that to the outgoing leader, be willing to speak up and, and just be vulnerable and say, you know, this is what I don't know and this is what I'm worried or concerned about what I may need help with. And this is the perfect time to do that. And so I've got a couple, like I said, I've got a couple stories, some, some good ones where I did this with my Deacon transitions and it was great. We're able to share information and talk about, you know, some of the issues that were underlying that, that weren't really publicly known. But I've got an example too of the way not to do it. So one time I was in Boy Scouts and our scout pack had, had selected a new scout master, basically a new cub master. He was going to be the leader of the Cub Scout pack for us. And he had agreed to do it. And there were, there were some of us parents who were also on the leadership team. And we had the first few meetings of the year. And our new leader didn't show up to the meetings. He was, you know, either he couldn't make it for work or something going on. We had a couple meetings like that where he didn't show up, he didn't make it. And so we just assumed that he wasn't really interested in, in serving as the leader of the pack. And we assumed that, that he, you know, was too busy and didn't really want to. And, you know, we thought that his wife had convinced him to do it, right? Had told him that he needed to. And he really didn't want to. So that was our assumption. So you notice I said the word I used was an assumption, right? We didn't ask him, we just assumed. So us leaders, other leaders, adults, we started making the plans and we started, you know, planning things out and doing things that we thought needed to be done to keep the pack and keep things moving and making progress. And well, come to find out a couple of months later, we, us adult leaders, we find out that, that Chad, Chad was his name, that Chad was kind of upset with us and that we were closing him out and we weren't including him. We weren't letting him be a leader like he had, you know, agreed to do. And we were totally caught off guard. You know, we didn't communicate with him, right? We just made an assumption, we didn't have a meeting any kind of a transition meeting with Chad to go over these things, to tell him what the expectation was of him or, you know, what we were thinking and expecting. So we didn't do that. And so that's a great example of how not to do it. These, I guarantee you, you know, a meeting in person, like I said earlier, it's just invaluable. And so here are the questions to talk about. So you want to, you know, you want to be willing to go over these, these can be kind of tough questions for both outgoing and incoming. But these are the five questions. And these are on that handout that I gave you, one called takeaways. So if you downloaded that, you've already got them on your handout, you don't need to scribble them down really quick or anything. But these are questions, I just, I think there's a really great questions. It allows the outgoing leader to again, share some of the good things, some of the goals that they've had and share that with the new incoming leader helps to pass things down, right, things that the organization has been doing for a long time, maybe events or activities that you as the outgoing leader want to see continued. And so it gives you a great opportunity to do that. So, so yeah, I think that covers us on on the handoff. So we're going to keep on moving to the last phase of leadership transition is the powerful begin with the incoming leader. All right, so this is, you know, the transition has been really made. And now you've got the new leader. And so we want to, we want to help support. And so listen, one of the things that I want to encourage you, if you are the outgoing leader here, please don't just disappear. I have, you know, I've been involved in many organizations, and I've actually seen a few times where the outgoing leader is so ready to be done being the leader. And they just can't wait that I mean the minute that they are finished, it's like, you know, they're out of there. And they're gone. And you never see them at another meeting. You never see them at another event. And they just disappear. So I'll tell you, as the outgoing, as the outgoing leader, please don't do that. So offer time to answer questions and provide support. And this specifically to the new leader or the new incoming leader, make yourself available as an outgoing leader, because there's no telling what's going to come up, right? You know that as a leader yourself, there's no telling what this new leader is going to encounter in the future. And so instead of just bailing out and saying, well, good luck, you know, I hope you hope you do well, to make a really successful transition, you as the outgoing leader need to continue to be involved. So again, I saw this couple times in my Deacon leadership transitions at church. One particular one was in our in our Deacon ministry, we have term limits. So you can only serve for a certain amount of time as a Deacon and you have to take a sabbatical. Basically, you have to take a year off. And I was serving as the Deacon Chairman, and I knew that my sabbatical was coming up. And I actually stepped down from serving as a chairman the year before my sabbatical was up, so that I would still be active at the meetings and involved with the ministry for a full year, where there was a new chairman, a new leader in place, so that I could could be there to answer his questions. And sure enough, all throughout the year, there are all these things that come up that, you know, situations that that there's no way I could have briefed him on ahead of time. But when they come up throughout the year, I was still there, I was still active and engaged, and was able to tell him, well, this is how we handled it last year, or this is how, you know, we maybe handled it in the past or a similar situation that we had. So that's the wealth of knowledge you have as an outgoing leader is that, you know, you've been through so many situations, so many experiences as a leader that, you know, again, your experience is just invaluable for an incoming leader. And, you know, likewise, in this stage for the incoming leader, be willing to accept support, you know, if other people are willing to help you and support you, you know, if you've got another, an outgoing leader who's there and who's willing to support you, you know, accept it. Don't, you know, just one little thing, I mean, don't turn your back on the outgoing leader, you know, don't, I'll talk about this a little bit a little often, don't let your ego get so far ahead of you, you know, and grow so big that you don't think that you need any help, or you don't think that you need support. So definitely, as it is the incoming, you know, accept offers when people offer to support you. All right, this next one, this may be my favorite tip, just because I have a picture that goes with it. So it might be my favorite one. And so poise. So I want you to kind of picture, if you will, as this is for the incoming leader, right? If you're an incoming or you're a new leader or something, really, I want to really encourage you to behave and conduct yourself with poise. And the best way that I can think of to describe that is to think about a duck. So if you picture a duck on a pond, just like this one on the screen, and so you picture this duck, what you see on the surface, above the water surface is calm, peaceful looking, the ducks just kind of gliding through the water peacefully. You might see just a few little ripples. But generally speaking, it's all calm and quiet above the water. But if you could like, if there was a way you could, you know, take and dip your head down below the surface, you would see that that duck's feet are paddling, paddling, paddling. I mean, like crazy, they're going crazy underneath the surface to guide the duck wherever it wants to go. But above, it looks like all is calm and peaceful. So that's that's this piece of advice for called poise for you as a new leader. When you become a leader in an organization, most likely, and you are going to feel like you're drinking from a fire hydrant, you know, you're trying to get a sip of water, and it's just pouring at you, that's how much information is coming at you. It's overload, you can't take it all in, your head may be spinning, that may be how you feel, right. And that's, and that's probably going to be normal. But I encourage you during your meetings and events and activities and out with, with your membership people, remember to act and behave with poise. You know, don't let them know that inside your head, you're thinking about all kinds of things and you're solving problems, and you know, you're running through things in your head, but on the surface and outwardly show up with poise. So that's my encouragement there. And my last piece of advice is to use the phone. So this one is maybe my simplest one tip, use the phone is, you know, real simple, and it is exactly what it sounds like. I mean, I'm going to encourage you, if you're a new and incoming leader, call, make one phone call every week, at least one, but set a goal, make one phone call every week, and call either another one of the leadership team of your organization, just to talk with them, see how they're doing, you know, call one of the volunteers or just simply call just one of the members of your organization. I mean, someone you know, even if they're not a volunteer or they're not a member yet, give them a call once a week. And here's what you do on that call. You just listen. You know, you just ask them how they're doing or how it's going. Or maybe you prompt them with a question, how's, you know, what are they, how do they think this is going in your, in your community or in your organization? How do they think something's going, but make that one college week and listen. And so here's the reason I put that on there, because again, I saw, you know, I had one really great experience with this. And so again, you're back to my, my days serving as a deacon and I was serving as the chairman. And we, the deacon ministry, our group, we were faced with a time where we either needed to make a change, change the way that we had always done something or stick with and keep doing it the way we had always done it. And, you know, so this was like a change management kind of thing. And my opinion as, and I was the chairman, my opinion was that we needed to make a change that we should change things. And, you know, as over a little bit of time, a couple of months, you know, and I had conversations here and there with people and I found out that there were a handful of other deacons in the body who did not think we should change things. They wanted to stick with things the way they were. But because I felt really strongly that we needed to change things, this is what I did. I called every one of our deacons, they were about 15 at the time, and I called every one of them over, over time, over a couple of weeks, you know, every evening on my way home, I would call a couple. And I would just ask them, you know, what do they think about this issue? You know, should we change it? Should we stay the way it is? And I found out that there were a couple, two, maybe, who felt pretty strongly about keeping it the way it is. And there were almost everybody else really didn't have a strong feeling one way or the other. They were willing to do either one. We can change it, that's fine. We can leave it the same, that's fine. And, and that's how everybody felt. But the great thing was we went into, we had our next meeting. And I still believe that we needed to make this change. I believe, I still believe that it was the best thing long term for that group. And, and so I went in and because I had called and talked to and listened to all of the, all of the other deacons and I heard their concerns, I was able to make, make a pitch for, you know, what the making this change that I thought we needed to make, I was able to make a really good, strong, successful pitch. And I was able to address the concerns of the couple of deacons who wanted to keep it the same because I had listened to them and I had listened to why they wanted to keep it the same. And you know, kind of what their underlying reasons were. And I was able to address those concerns and make a really strong, successful pitch. And we voted to make the change and vote was unanimous. We all agreed, everyone agreed. And there really was no, no arguing and nobody got upset, which is a great thing, especially those of you who, who attend church a lot, you may be, you may be not in your head. Yeah, that's pretty amazing. There was no, not any arguments, but we discussed it, but we ended up all agreeing that, you know what, it's, it's good to make the change. And I was able to speak to that because I had simply talked to people and listened to them. And so even if, even the guys who probably still didn't really want to make the change, they may not have agreed that we needed to, they felt they knew that they were heard. You know, they knew that I had listened to them and that I had their feelings and their opinions had been heard. And so then they were okay. And they got behind the final decision that we made. So time to wrap it up. So I hope that that, like I said, that I pointed out that I, that I, you know, emphasized enough that planning ahead is, is critical, you know, as the outgoing leader, especially, it's critical for setting clear expectations, you know, you need to plan ahead. If you're going to ask for help, you need to, you know, I would tell you one of the first things to do is think of one person, you know, think of one person, one name who, you know, volunteer who you want to ask to become volunteer or start volunteering. Just think of, you know, one person, but that takes planning ahead. That takes finding the time. You know, I was thinking, I was thinking earlier in the week, what is, what is, what is the reason that we're so busy these days? And, you know, we all know it. It's, it's this little thing right here that keeps us all crazy busy. You know, anytime I have two spare minutes sitting at the curbside waiting for my Chick-fil-A order to come out, I grab my phone and I start scrolling through and looking at it. Now we, we are so distracted today in our society. And it's hard to stop and plan ahead. You know, that's what I'm getting at, even for me. And I love to plan ahead, but I find myself sometimes just thinking, oh, I'm just, I'm just taking it one day at a time. I can only think about today. And, you know, it's not really true. It's just that I, I'm distracted and I feel my time, my free spare time, where I could be thinking and planning ahead. I feel that time with other things. So it's critical to plan ahead for these things, especially for a leadership transition, if you want it to go smoothly and successfully. And the last thing that I want to just, just remind everybody is that, you know, remember why you or we do this. And it's for the community. So if you, if you find yourself, you know, getting upset or, or basically find your ego kind of growing because you've got, you've got some authority or some power, I will tell you, you need to pump the brakes a little bit and, you know, stop and remember that it's about the community. And if you, if you genuinely care about the community, then, you know, these things, these successfully transitioning for leadership will be important. And like I said at the beginning, think about this, what, what would your community be missing out on if your organization, if you didn't exist at all? Well, what would they miss out on? Right? So remember that everything that you do, all the work and effort that you put in is, is for others and it's for your community. And with that, I hope there's still some of you here with me, but I'm ready for questions. Let's see. If y'all have questions, there isn't any questions on there. If you'd like, if they want to raise their hands, are you hoping to bring in a couple people in for a quick conversation? Absolutely. Yeah. If you have, if you want to come in, you bet. If you want, if somebody has questions and wants to just kind of collaborate, please raise your hand and I'll let you in here. Let's see. How does a leader, this is from Ms. Carol Ross, how does a leader know when it's time to move on and give someone else an opportunity to lead, not a leader for life? It's time to move on and give someone else an opportunity to lead. Oh gosh. That, that's a hard question to have come up with an answer to. I know, you know, one of, I mean, one of my examples was, you know, when I served as the chairman of Deacons and I stepped down a year early to allow someone else to step in and be the leader so that I could be there to support them, you know, in that last year. And so in that case, I guess, you know, it took just, just being aware and again, planning ahead, looking forward, you know, looking at as much as you can, trying to look forward for your organization and, you know, try to kind of have that vision for the organization. And, you know, it might be something like, you might, you might look around your, for example, your neighborhood and, and, you know, simply look at the demographics of the community, right? And, you know, look at the age and the, and, you know, just the family status and that kind of thing to see, to see if, if maybe it's time for you, you know, looking forward saying, you know, okay, I think our organization needs to go in this direction. And, and I'm not sure that I can take it there. I'm not sure that that's, that that's, you know, that that's where I'm going to take it or that's where I'm headed. And that's gosh, I don't know, that's about the best, the best I can answer your question, I think, is just, you know, trying to look towards the future and see what's out there in the future. And I don't know, I don't feel like that was a great answer to your question, but thank you. Thank you. So, so part of it is, you know, sometimes if, if I guess if there are no bylaws or anything, you know, for some of these organizations, you know, people can be reluctant both to step into a position where they can volunteer one, because, you know, am I going to have to do this for the rest of my life? Or the other might be somebody who just doesn't want to leave and relinquish that role? Yeah. I don't know. Anybody else? Anybody else? Okay, we kind of get that a lot too, though. You know, our neighborhood associations, you know, they all have bylaws, they come up with them, you know, whether they were, you know, serving, it's been, you know, years, or if they're just now getting started. Yeah. So some of them will set those term limits. And, but at a certain point, I think some of them have a hard time keeping connected. And then nobody kind of wants to step up, right? And so it, and we have to kind of keep reminding them, you know, we're not just going to show up at people's meetings, but we have, you know, that kind of support. And if you need, you know, assistance getting the word out there, you know, kind of refocusing on reengaging, then that's kind of what, you know, what we can do. But I went to a meeting recently where, you know, everyone was kind of like, I don't know if I want to, you know, they're like, Hey, our elections are, is there any nominations from the floor? And I could see that people wanted to, but they were kind of like, I don't know. And so I was just kind of like, Hey, just a reminder, we're here to guide you and help you through it. And I think it's important to also think, yes, I'm the president or yes, I'm, you know, this, but I can also help in different little positions as well. And kind of like help lighten that load. Because if you think of president, you think, Oh, they have all of this stuff going on. But really, if you distribute the load, you kind of get support for each one, it is more manageable as well. Yeah, I agree. I really appreciate the presentation because, you know, I see it as a volunteer. And I also see it in my city role, where neighborhood association presidents, they, you know, they've been doing it for eight or 10 years. And it's like, I can't find anybody to step up. Yeah. And especially, you know, we're, we have changing demographics. How do we, how do we get the, the boards of some of these organizations become more diverse? Right. And we kind of talked about that as well. Ruth and I, and our engagement starts with us is, you know, what we're doing to reach Hispanics and in, you know, well, that's all I, you know, I can, you know, I can reach out to anyone else, but I'd have to have somebody else with that language kind of, you know, join us. But what we've seen is a lot of our neighborhood associations probably even realizing are stepping up and actually translating everything, having everything in Spanish and English, you know, if they need that assistance at their meetings, they're calling me or Ruth or somebody and asking for it. Okay. Great. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it. Can you? Others keeping in? Are they in yet? Fabiola? Yes. Can you see me? Yes. Am I able to hear? Well, I just wanted to add to Ms. Carol, her questions that here, no, Paso happens the same thing. And it happens because usually the ones that do not want to leave are the ones that started, started the neighborhood association, the ones that created the bylaws. And it gets like in first place, they got together because they had an issue to resolve. After the issue has been resolved, everything's, everyone is busy, everyone doesn't care so much. And the person that started that neighborhood association continues with a job. But I usually relate with her and it seems that even if they follow the bylaws, they find a way that, that when he's going to be the voting, everyone is afraid to take it out, that person, because she's the one that has been leading for so many years and for so many reasons. So I just wanted to add that it not only happened in her place, but everywhere I think, you know, Paso happens. And usually, those are even the founders of the neighborhood association movement in the city. And they have earned their respect from all of us, that it is hard. It is very hard to take them away, because in the first place, they don't want to relinquish. They want to continue with it. So, like Mr. Alvish, I don't have that response. I just want to feel that it happens everywhere. Thank you. Thank you for hearing me. Yeah, you're, I mean, you're exactly right. It's the sort of thing that happens. It's out there. It happens everywhere. I mean, I wish I had the magic answer for you. It's like, you know, the thing I'll go back to is, you know, if you're willing to, to get in, you know, get your hands dirty and try, you know, the best thing you can try to pitch to someone is that, again, it's about what's best for the community. And, you know, you may understand that. You may realize it. And you may, you may see others who you don't think they realize that. And that's hard. It's very hard. So, I see, I'm looking at the questions there. So, I see, yeah, yeah. What do you want to do next, Brad? Information when they... I'm not sure. I, like, in regards to what, I mean, I mean, like, maybe mean, like if you're an outgoing leader, and how do you offer information to an incoming leader, maybe who doesn't want it? Or, so, like, again, you know, those are hard. I mean, you're talking about dealing with, you know, difficult people at this point, if there's somebody who, you know, doesn't want to support or, you know, thinks that they've got it, it's very difficult, right? That's, I mean, the best thing, you know, that I can tell you is offer, you know, offer any information with respect. I'm sure you've heard that a million times this conference, you know, offer with respect and do it respectfully. And, yeah, you know, this is another part of a previous workshop that I saw that, I mean, I'm a firm believer that, you know, there may be a time where, for you personally, if you can't, if you can't get through to someone, I mean, there may be a time for you that you need to, you know, kind of dust your hands off and say, okay, you know, I've done it, I've tried, I've made my best effort. And, you know, move on and don't get hung up on that. But otherwise, just keep at it, perseverance and just keep at it. So what can be done when a neighborhood board is just quit holding meetings? Brenda, I don't know, do you have any experience with that? I mean, we do a lot. I figured you did. You know, we, the only thing that when we ask, when they were written, the policies were written by council and, and all of that is, we only ask you to have one meeting a year, right? And so a lot of organizations to have more than that, a lot of them do it monthly, which is great, right? It's great, they're engaged, they have an agenda each month, awesome. But sometimes they kind of trickle off. And I don't know if it's because they are afraid to ask for help if they're not getting anybody there. So, you know, if you know that you have that support or try something different, you know, a lot of it with the COVID, a lot of neighborhoods weren't, they didn't feel comfortable doing anything virtual. And so we offered, hey, we can help you with virtual meetings. So it was just kind of like one of those things, you know, like we said, our office isn't just going to show up to your meeting, you have to invite us, you know. We're, you know, people that you invite just like anybody else. But I think just being, being sure that you have someone that you can kind of ask those questions to, kind of fall back on. So that, like I said, we do this re-engage program a lot in a lot of neighborhood associations that may have had other leaders that kind of just trickled off and became unregistered. We kind of ask, you know, people are stepping up and saying, hey, how can I re-do this, you know, in this, in this neighborhood, in this area? And so we kind of help them brainstorm those, those different methods of doing that. So I hope that that answered your question. But let's go to the next one. Let me see. We have an issue with people wanting to get on the board who have already had issues. How do you, how do you deal with issues that have already had issues? So again, I'm kind of, I'm reading into it a little bit. I think you, are you, are you saying that people have had issues? Like they've been in volunteers or on the board in the past and they exhibited issues and now they're trying to get back on the board? So, you know, sometimes it starts with conversation, right? It's, people are coming back on the board, which I've had a lot of in different areas and they're like, well, these people, you know, did this, this and this. Okay, well, it's time to let's address it. Let's move on past it and let's see how we can, you know, get it, get this together because we're all adults here, right? If we're going to be on a board, we have to know that we can work with other people, right? And so being sure that everyone's in the same, you know, on the same level, right? Understanding this is what we're here for. This is what we're getting done. And then just kind of moving on from there. It's understandable that, you know, some people don't want to work with other people and blah, blah, blah. But like I said, at the end of the day, if you need mediation, if you need something else, you know, we're definitely appreciative of everyone who volunteers for these positions, but at the same time, you have to hold your part of the bargain on and be sure that everything is going to be going smoothly, right? That's all I have on that one. I'm going to move on to the next one. A big issue in our community is the language barrier. Leadership should reflect the community. I would love for the next president to be Spanish speaking, but that might alienate the non-Spanish speakers. That's, you know, I hear you. So that is, gosh, it takes a very, I'm trying to say, I don't want to say walk a fine line, but, you know, it takes a real intuition about the, that particular neighborhood, you know, that association or that group that it is so tough to know when is the right time to, I say, make that kind of a transition. It's, so I guess my first thought is, you know, are there other positions that a, you said specifically, I'm looking back, you know, a Spanish speaking president. So, you know, there are other positions that someone could hold, a Spanish speaker could hold in, and like you said, on the board, if you've got multiple positions, you know, there could be some other positions that could be a Spanish speaker. I don't know, that would be my suggestion, you know, sort of slowly work into instead of just, you know, I want to see a president be a Spanish speaker, you know, find another role for the Spanish speaker to, and I know it takes the right kind of people, right, but it goes, you know, for both ways for the non-Spanish speakers to get used to trying to communicate, you know, that can be hard, right, and get used to communicating with the Spanish speaker and kind of vice versa. It takes a lot of grace, you know, when you're dealing with, you're trying to work together like that, and with someone who don't speak the same language, it takes a lot of grace, but that would be my suggestion, you know, try to find a, maybe another, like is that a board or another leadership position that may not be necessarily the president to get some Spanish speakers involved, but I do agree with you completely that, you know, I would say the same thing with this at our church, that we want our church, you know, you want your organization, you're to, and in your leadership, to to match, you know, the demographics of the community, absolutely, that's, that's important. I'm trying to let a couple of you in, Mr. where am I? Mr. Aquino Wong, you are still on hold, so I'm not sure if you're accepting yet or not, or if it's come through, and Mr. George as well, okay, we're going to move on to the next one for a minute. Thank you for raising your hands and here comes Mr. George, go ahead. Yes, I appreciate so much everything that I've learned through this, through these meetings, and I've got some great ideas, but I've got to be honest with you, I've got to be honest with you, in my community, I'm currently the president, and I've been president five years or so, but in my community, let's be honest here, it's going to take somebody that's just speak Spanish, that's all they speak, and they, it's going to add it to really represent the folk in my community. If we had a Spanish speaking person that just spoke Spanish, this place would explode, but in the meantime, the few folk that still live here that don't speak Spanish, and who aren't Mexican-American, you know, what do you do in that situation? Because that's the reality, I don't, I'm Hispanic, but I don't speak Spanish, my wife does, but I don't, but I think I guarantee you, if we were to get something started with a person that just spoke Spanish, we could grow this association, but it would alienate the few folk that are still left here. How do you deal with that situation? Thank you so much. Tough question to put this on the spot, I'm not one. You know what I, I think what I'm going to go back to is, you know, celebrating the good, and you know what I'm going to ask is, I get, you feel very strongly that you need to have a Spanish speaker, and so I think, why, you've got to kind of ask yourself, why, why do you, why do you believe that's a good thing for the community going forward, you know, why do you think it's good? Because of reality, reality, 80 percent, 70 to 80 percent of my community, we're one square mile, Bonnie Bray here in Riverside, and you're probably familiar with the area, probably 80 percent of the community is Hispanic, and I think 50 percent don't even speak English, but if, if, if, if we could get somebody to get into my position, who doesn't even speak English, is what I'm saying. What do you feel about that? Well, you would grow, you know. Yeah, yeah, I, I don't know what you mean, because yeah, if you, you know, if you don't speak, if you don't speak Spanish, you only English-speaking, then, you know, your president of the neighborhood is only Spanish-speaking. Yeah, I see what you mean, that could, it could alienate. It's a localized appetite, you know, like in South Africa, like they used to have in South Africa, somebody trying to be a leader who, who doesn't really represent 80 percent of the population, or 50 percent at the minimum, you know. Yeah. Well, in trying to connect with Spanish-speaking church leaders who speak both, you know, people who work at the school, teachers, different thing like that. I don't think necessarily, you know, alienate, would alienate the English speakers, but they would contribute to both. And that's kind of what we talked about in a different setting, was being able to be sure that you have someone that translates. There's been a lot of neighborhoods that have grown in the Hispanic aspect, and they've just tried it, right? They've tried it, they've tried to include, they've tried to keep everything in Spanish. In English, do the meetings and ask, hey, is there anyone here that needs this in Spanish? And they start raising their hands. And so you kind of do that both ways. And it kind of starts bringing people, like I was talking about earlier, people are like, people, some daughters bring their mom, you know, they're older, and they bring their mom in Spanish. And it's kind of like, well, I want to, you know, volunteer for this position, but I don't know anything about it. And so just making sure that they'll have that continuous support and making it simple to follow, and just kind of going from there. And Mr. Jordan, I'm glad to work with you after this has been over, because there's so much that's been going on, and I'm happy to continue to help you in that, in that process. Thank you so much. Thank you. Have a good day. Hi, Ms. Celia. Just to go along with the gentleman's question about the Spanish, our neighborhood is about 60 to 70 percent minority in Black, Hispanic, and most of the Hispanics don't speak English. But I'm on the board and I speak Spanish and English. And so there's a lot of times when they will call me directly to find out different things. But we've kind of tried to get them engaged. And so now instead of it's kind of like your mom's bring their daughters. And that's how we've been able to get some of these guys engaged into it. It's harder for some of the other cultures that for us work. You have to bridge that language barrier. And my other question was we have, because we're there's so many minorities in our community, we had a group of people that were trying to get rid of all the minorities. And they spent $21,000 trying to evict all of these people just because they were Black and white, Black and Mexican, Mexican, Asian. Connection came off. But when we move on to the next question and see if she kind of comes back on, what advice can you offer in establishing relationships with elected officials? Yes. Pardon me? Could you hear me? Yes, ma'am. Okay. And so it's been really difficult for these same guys. We've been in office for about two and a half years now. And we're taught in office because it was some of the lines that they crossed were their housing lines that they crossed. And so how do you handle that when the community has already once voted them out, but because no one's wanting to step up, to be in those, it makes it really difficult. So we can't step down because of it. It's kind of like the other lady was saying, how long do you stay? We know if our time is up, but it's like, if we leave, this is the alternative. Go on to recruitment. I don't know. Tell it. It's like kind of the story you just told us. I feel like you've got to let other people, you've got to somehow get that same story out to basically those who aren't willing to volunteer and say, we were able to do this good thing. Like I said, as an organization, we're able to do this good thing for our community, for our neighborhood, because we stepped up and volunteered. And now we're about to step down or we're coming up. And when your elections are, when things start, we're coming up on that and we want, we're going to step down. And if no one else steps in, I mean, it's almost like, I don't want to say a threat, but it's telling that story and painting the picture, letting people know what might happen if they're unwilling to step up. We had a treasure that stepped down and then we had somebody else volunteer. Her connection's a little bit. We'll see if she comes back on, but we're going to move on. We got about three more minutes. I'm going to move on to another gotten up here. Can you give advice on three ways leaders can overcome jealousy from past leaders? Yeah, I saw that one. I've given at least one. I like how you asked me for three, you know, three ways. You might, you seem like maybe you're a Toastmaster, you know, that's one of the things we teach. You always have three points. I'll tell you one is focus on something else. I mean, if you're, if it's you, you know, I'm having the problem being jealous. The best thing I can do is focus my attention on something else, you know, take my mind off of that, whatever it is that's causing me to be jealous. You know, it might be, it depends on right a million situations, it might be that you need to take a break as a leader. You might need to take a break in some way or another, but it's like focus, focus on something else. And again, it's like back to remind yourself of what is the, what is the purpose of it all, you know, that the purpose is, in this case, if it's the community and what's best for the community. And, and, you know, try to, try to, try to remember that and just try to remind yourself over and over, that's the purpose. But mainly focus on something different. You know, if you're finding yourself jealous, find something else to take up your, your space in your brain. So we're struggling with some of the neighborhoods where nobody will step forward to be the neighborhood chair. I think your idea of asking one-on-one in advance may work. I hope so. And I like that you kind of added that in advance and you're absolutely right. You know, in my, this is an example from Toastmasters. We, we sometimes in my club, we kind of wait until like the day before the election of officers. And we say, you know, sometimes we just kind of forget and shoot out, oh, hey, by the way, we need to know if anybody's interested in being, you know, running for this officer, that we wait too late. So you're absolutely right. Again, planning ahead, thinking ahead. If you can, if you can do that in advance. And, you know, like I said, let, letting people know, hey, in, in three months or in six months, you know, this is going to come up. This is going to happen. And, and again, providing people that roles and responsibilities, you know, here they are. And so yeah, do it, do it well in advance. I hope. What advice can you offer in establishing relationships with officials as a new leader within an organization? So I think, I think that one of the tough things is that we often see our elected officials as, as, I mean, we, we almost view them as, you know, up on a pedestal, right. And we see them as not real people. Our gosh, they must be so smart. And they must be so, so, you know, so much smarter than me and better than me. And so I think that's, that's one piece of advice is just see, see an elected official as a real person, you know, a real human being just like, just like you. And so, you know, see them in that way. I know that they're a real person. And, you know, generally find that elected officials also usually they really care about the community. You know, that's, that's one of the reasons that they, that they ran for an office is they care. So, obviously, besides from the obvious, you know, be willing, be, don't be scared, don't be scared to talk to them and have that conversation. And, you know, get prepared for it, right, prepare, write down a few things, write down what it is about your organization, what's good, you know, have those things ready to go. Again, if you watch that, the other workshop, the volunteer recruitment retention, they'll tell you to prepare an elevator pitch. And so that's kind of what I would tell you, you know, be ready with that sort of an elevator pitch. What's good about your organization, if you're going to talk to an elected official, why are you going? Are you have, do you have a specific request? Make sure that you know what it is, know what you're asking for and make sure that it's clear. Some of these are kind of more of comments to get through them because our time is up. But Ms. Judy Bailey, how about asking them for some advice or mentorship, which we kind of talked about. Mr. Johnny Lewis, hey, Mr. Johnny, you're with my historic Southside. Have you tried conducting some training sessions, maybe bring an outside person to conduct the leadership training? So that's a good idea as well, you know, if they chose to do that. Ms. Fabiola, great advice. Sometimes people just like to feel recognized, which is true, if you're going to be in an organization, you want to be, you know, like, involved and engaged and like, hey, this is, this is me, how can I help you? Right? Dennis, leaders need to be, need to train and encourage people to replace them. That's usually something that isn't done. Have you had that before? Courage people to replace them. I don't know, usually, most of my experience has been with leaders that are ready to be done and they're just waiting for someone to come in and waiting for someone to step up. It's funny that we have, you know, we have both of those extremes, right? It's like in some organizations, you know, you can't find anybody willing to volunteer for miles around. And then, you know, in others, you got people who won't give it up. Gosh, if we could just marry all those both up and we would be perfect. All right. We are going to take some of these questions and your information is on there so JT can get to you after the session is kind of over. I'm sorry that we didn't have more time for some of these questions, but thank you so much for engaging with us. Thank you, JT, for being here. Up next are some of the neighborhood pride tours, which I need to get to as well. So thank you so much and we'll be sure to, if you have any questions, please click on JT's name and his email is on there and maybe his phone number, but we'll make sure that he gets these and answers those if we didn't get to answer. I think there might have been one or two great comments, great questions. Thank you so much again. And that's all I got. You have anything else, JT? I don't. Thank you all so much. Thank y'all and have a great time.